George Sutherland Fraser (8 November 1915 – 3 January 1980) was a Scottish poet, literary critic and academic.
Biography
Fraser was born in
Glasgow
Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...
, Scotland, later moving with his family to
Aberdeen
Aberdeen ( ; ; ) is a port city in North East Scotland, and is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, third most populous Cities of Scotland, Scottish city. Historically, Aberdeen was within the historic county of Aberdeensh ...
. He attended the
University of St. Andrews
The University of St Andrews (, ; abbreviated as St And in post-nominals) is a public university in St Andrews, Scotland. It is the oldest of the four ancient universities of Scotland and, following the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, t ...
, where he read History and English.
During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
he served in the
British Army
The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...
in
Cairo
Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...
and
Eritrea
Eritrea, officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa, with its capital and largest city being Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopia in the Eritrea–Ethiopia border, south, Sudan in the west, and Dj ...
. He was published as a poet in ''
Salamander
Salamanders are a group of amphibians typically characterized by their lizard-like appearance, with slender bodies, blunt snouts, short limbs projecting at right angles to the body, and the presence of a tail in both larvae and adults. All t ...
'', a Cairo literary magazine. At the same time, he was involved with the
New Apocalyptics
The New Apocalyptics were a poetry grouping in the United Kingdom in the 1940s, taking their name from the anthology ''The New Apocalypse'' ( 1939), which was edited by J. F. Hendry (1912–1986) and Henry Treece. There followed the further antho ...
group, writing an introductory essay for the anthology ''The White Horseman'', and formulating as well as anyone did the idea that they were successors to
surrealism
Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...
.
After the war, he became a prominent figure in London's literary circles, working as a journalist and critic. Together with his wife Paddy, he made friends with a gamut of literary figures, from the intellectual leader
William Empson
Sir William Empson (27 September 1906 – 15 April 1984) was an English literary critic and poet, widely influential for his practice of closely reading literary works, a practice fundamental to New Criticism. His best-known work is his firs ...
to the eccentric
John Gawsworth
Terence Ian Fytton Armstrong (29 June 1912 – 23 September 1970), better known as John Gawsworth (and also sometimes known as T. I. F. Armstrong), was a British writer, poet and compiler of anthologies, both of poetry and of short stories. He a ...
. He worked with Ian Fletcher to have Gawsworth's ''Collected Poems'' (1949) published. Fraser's direction was that of the traditional
man of letters
An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and reflection about the nature of reality, especially the nature of society and proposed solutions for its normative problems. Coming from the world of culture, either ...
(soon to become extinct).
In 1948, Fraser contributed an essay entitled "A Language by Itself" to a biblio-
symposium
In Ancient Greece, the symposium (, ''sympósion'', from συμπίνειν, ''sympínein'', 'to drink together') was the part of a banquet that took place after the meal, when drinking for pleasure was accompanied by music, dancing, recitals, o ...
honouring the 60th birthday of
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist and playwright.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biography''. New York: Oxford University ...
. Drawing comparisons with
John Donne
John Donne ( ; 1571 or 1572 – 31 March 1631) was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a recusant family, who later became a clergy, cleric in the Church of England. Under Royal Patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul's, D ...
, Fraser praised the poet's profound refreshment (particularly in ''
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is the first professionally published poem by the American-born British poet T. S. Eliot (1888–1965). It relates the varying thoughts of its title character in a stream of consciousness. Eliot began writi ...
'') of the English poetic tongue, together with his subtle facility for transitional verse and his potent effect on the poetic youth; but, more importantly for present purposes, he also confessed: "I am not a very original writer myself; I am lost, on the whole, without a convention of some sort .."
In 1949, he accepted the job of replacing
Edmund Blunden
Edmund Charles Blunden (1 November 1896 – 20 January 1974) was an English poet, author, and critic. Like his friend Siegfried Sassoon, he wrote of his experiences in World War I in both verse and prose. For most of his career, Blunden was als ...
as Cultural Adviser to the UK Liaison Mission in
Tokyo
Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...
. This ended badly when Fraser suffered a breakdown in 1951 while in
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
. Subsequently, he was much less the poet than the all-purpose writer.
He became a lecturer at the
University of Leicester
The University of Leicester ( ) is a public university, public research university based in Leicester, England. The main campus is south of the city centre, adjacent to Victoria Park, Leicester, Victoria Park. The university's predecessor, Univ ...
in 1959, where he was an inspiring teacher, remaining there until retirement in 1979.
He married Eileen Lucy Andrew (who was known as Paddy from birth) in 1946. She wrote a brief memoir of her life with Fraser: ''G. S. Fraser: A Memoir''. Together they had two daughters, including Helen Fraser, and a son. Paddy died in 2013.
Books
* ''The Fatal Landscape and Other Poems'' (1941)
* ''Home Town Elegy'' (1944)
* ''The Traveller has Regrets and Other Poems'' (1948);
* ''Vision of Scotland'' (1948)
* ''The Dedicated Life In Poetry'', by
Patrice de La Tour du Pin
Patrice de La Tour du Pin (16 March 1911, Paris – 28 October 1975, ibid) was a French writer and poet. He was the winner of the Grand prix catholique de littérature in 1971 for ''Une Lutte pour la vie''.John Waller and J. C. Hall.
* ''Lawrence Durrell. A Study'' (1968), with a bibliography by Alan G. Thomas
* ''Conditions'' (1969)
* ''Metre, Rhyme and Free Verse'' (1970)
* ''John Keats: Odes'' (1971) edited
* ''P. H. Newby'' (1974)
* ''Essays on Twentieth Century Poets'' (1977)
* ''Alexander Pope'' (1978);
* ''Return to Oasis: War Poems and Recollections from the Middle East, 1940–1946'' (1980), edited with
Victor Selwyn
Victor Selwyn (1917–2005) was a British journalist whose career began during World War II with a collection of poems from soldiers. It was this work that led him to attain his MBE in 1996 He was associated with the Cairo poets, and was &mda ...
,
Erik de Mauny
Erik Cecil Leon de Mauny (17 September 1920 – 18 March 1997) was an English journalist, author, and the BBC's first Moscow correspondent, working for them there from 1963, and as a foreign correspondent in other countries.
Early life
Erik ...
, Ian Fletcher, and John Waller.
* ''Poems of G.S. Fraser'' (1981), editors Ian Fletcher and John Lucas, Leicester University Press
* ''A Short History of English Poetry'' 1981
* ''A Stranger and Afraid: Autobiography of an Intellectual'' (1983), Carcanet Press
Kingsley Amis
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Thomas Blackburn Thomas, Tom or Tommy Blackburn may refer to:
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- John Short -
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Bibliography
* Fraser, George Sutherland. "A Language by Itself." In ''T. S. Eliot: A Symposium'', edited by
Richard March
Pop Will Eat Itself are an English alternative rock band formed in 1986 in Stourbridge in the West Midlands of England with members from Birmingham, Coventry and the Black Country. Initially known as a grebo act, they changed style to incorpo ...
and
Tambimuttu
Meary James Thurairajah Tambimuttu (15 August 1915 – 23 June 1983) was a Tamil poet, editor, critic and publisher, who for many years played a significant part in the literary scenes of London and New York City. In 1939 he founded the respect ...
, 167–177.
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
:
Editions Poetry
Edition may refer to:
* Edition (book), a bibliographical term for a substantially similar set of copies
* Edition (printmaking), a publishing term for a set print run
* Edition (textual criticism), a particular version of a text
* Edition Records ...