The Outcasts

By Edith Sitwell

First published in London in 1962, this collection of Sitwell's later poetry contains "several pieces which show that the lyrical impulse of her early days was still alive to make new discoveries of great freshness and tenderness" - Dictionary of National Biography

"Her mastery of the long line, the pause, of contrasting fullness and ghostliness of sound is as striking as ever. So is her high simplicity of spirit." -The Times Literary Supplement

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Sep 28, 2011
• ISBN: 9781448202058

Edith Sitwell

Edith Sitwell was born in 1887 into an aristocratic family and, along with her brothers, Osbert and Sacheverell, had a significant impact on the artistic life of the 20s. She encountered the work of the French symbolists, Rimbaud in particular, early in her writing life and became a champion of the modernist movement, editing six editions of the controversial magazine Wheels. She remained a crusading force against philistinism and conservatism throughout her life and her legacy lies as much in her unstinting support of other artists as it does in her own poetry. Sitwell died in 1964.

Book preview

Edith Sitwell

THE OUTCASTS

Contents

PREFACE

1. THE OUTCASTS

2. THE WAR ORPHANS

3. CHORIC SONG

4. PRAISE WE GREAT MEN

5. ‘HIS BLOOD COLOURS MY CHEEK’

6. THE YELLOW GIRL

7. SONG

8. A GIRL’S SONG IN WINTER

9. LA BELLA BONA ROBA

10. PROTHALAMIUM

Preface

FROM time to time, mainly in England, an outcry arises on the subject of the use of the arts in general, and of poetry in particular. This seems to me very odd. Who was it bade us ‘Consider the lilies of the field’? Why should everything in the world, necessarily, be of use? And what do we mean when we speak of use? Although poetry has, or should have, the beauty of the lily, it is as unseeing to ask what is the use of poetry as it would be to ask what is the use of religion.

As that great writer Jean Cocteau said: ‘The spirit of poetry is indeed the religious spirit outside all precise religion’.

‘He from the sunlike centrality and reach of his vision,’ said