English Literature, 20th cent. to the Present: Biographies

The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature Further reading

Muir, Edwin

The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature | 2003 | | Copyright

Muir, Edwin (1887–1959), poet, born in Orkney. He turned to socialism (through the writings of Blatchford) and to the works of Nietzsche. He became assistant to Orage, and contributed to New Age. Muir married Willa Anderson (1890–1970) in 1919 and in 1921 they went to Prague and remained in Europe for four years, a period that later produced their collaborative translations from the German (notably of Kafka, 1930–49). More importantly, it freed Muir's imagination as a poet. First Poems (1925) was followed by several other collections, including Chorus of the Newly Dead (1926), The Labyrinth (1949), and Collected Poems 1921–1951 (1952). Muir's poetry is traditional in form, and much of his imagery is rooted in the landscapes of his childhood. A sense of subdued menace lies beneath many of his quiet and orderly poems, which sometimes (as in his well known piece ‘The Horses’) achieve the Apocalyptic. Muir also published three novels, a number of critical works, and a highly evocative autobiography published in 1940 as The Story and the Fable and revised as An Autobiography in 1954.

Cite this article
Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography.

MLA
Chicago
APA

MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Muir, Edwin." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. 1 Jun. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Muir, Edwin." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. (June 1, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-MuirEdwin.html

MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Muir, Edwin." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Retrieved June 01, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-MuirEdwin.html

Learn more about citation styles

Free newspaper and magazine articles

	"Between the tiger's paws": Scotland, Czechoslovakia, and the poetry of Edwin... Magazine article from: Modern Age; 6/22/2008
	Football: Muir on the move.(Sport) Newspaper article from: The News Letter (Belfast, Northern Ireland); 11/1/1999
	A Time to Every Purpose: The Four Seasons in American Culture.(Book Review) Magazine article from: Journal of Social History; 12/22/2005