3 Review(s)

There has not been a full scale biography of Arthur Hugh Clough for some thirty years. From the 1860s it was not uncommon to regard Clough as an equal partner of a poetic fraternity whose other members were Tennyson, Browning, and Arnold. His poetry declined in reputation during the first half of the twentieth century, but was brought back into the public eye during the second world war. In 1941 Winston Churchill, anxious to secure American co-operation in the fight against Hitler, broadcast some lines from "Say not the struggle naught availeth" which ended "Westward, look, the land is bright". In the post-war years several critics have been willing to hail Clough as the most modern of Victorian poets. This biography stresses the close links between Clough's life and his poems, and pays particular attention to his love poetry and his associations with the many women who played an important part in his life.