Edward Thomas and the Georgian Movement

Edward Thomas, an English poet, is recognized for his works on both nature and war. His poetic career peaked around 1914 following a mixture of both the very close friendship and inspiration of another renowned poet, Robert Frost, in addition to the beginning of World War I (Poupard, 448). Within this period, Edward Thomas moved to a new home in Yew Tree Cottage, a very rural area, where the landscape had a significant impact upon his writings (Weygandt, 455). This surge in pastoral poetry coincided with the arrival of the Georgian Movement in 1912 (Strong, 126). In the early twentieth century, Edward Thomas took part in the new Georgian Movement, expressing himself and his emotions within poetry consisting of vivid descriptions natural settings and scenes.

The Georgian Movement failed to become an extremely large movement as many others had in history. However, it still significantly influenced many poets into recognizing the "new strength and beauty of English poetry" as Edward Thomas had (Strong, 127). Thomas's new admiration for the rural environment and all of its beauty played hand-in-hand with the movement's attempt to escape the urban and industrial lifestyle that many Americans and Englishmen had come to live (126). In fact, Edward Thomas was one of the few poets who really pushed the movement, using his talent to embed emotion in his poetry.

Edward Thomas is known for how he managed to deeply influence his readers with nature poetry that was much more intense and emotional than the typical poet. Instead of simply wrote about large green fields and bright twittering birds, Thomas was able to invoke deep emotion and feeling within his poems (Lehmann, 455). It is claimed that works of Thomas's, like "The Manor Farm," are unable to be read without "hearing or seeing something" from it (Pritchard, 87). Edward Thomas has the unique ability to reproduce a feeling or sensation into a more natural image or scene, as he does in "The Owl," in which a soldier is represented by a lone rodent who escapes the danger of night. With this unique talent, Thomas is able to communicate his deeper thoughts and feelings that he has obtained through war experience through his poetry.

Besides writing just about the magnificence of nature, Edward Thomas proceeded to write about the importance of nature for inner peace and calmness. Just as nature regularly transitions from night into day, Thomas's "The Trumpet" preaches that humankind must regularly "expel their unlit dreams" and let its problems pass by in order to keep on living in comfort (Hoffpauir, 78). This idea of man and nature being one essence is prevalent in many of Edward Thomas's poems, including "Roads." In this poem, Thomas digs deeply in explaining how death is a natural phenomenon that people must not grieve over. Instead, their deaths must be used for spiritual support, allowing men to again become one with their surroundings (Richman, 469). Edward Thomas has in his later years incorporated the life lessons he learned while in duty into his poetry to build even more intensity and underlying emotion in his works.

Edward Thomas was a significant contributor to the short-lived Georgian Movement of 1912. His passion for the rural atmosphere, where nature is found at its finest, shaped the way in which he wrote. His underlying devotion to the subject allowed his work to reflect upon his audience, invoking the feelings and admiration that Thomas himself felt. With "words that penetrate," Thomas carried the Georgian Movement as far as he could before his death in the line of duty (Pritchard, 87). Edward Thomas, was a vivid and powerful poet who influenced many others with his talent in writing poetry.

Works Cited

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Lehmann, John. "Edward Thomas." The Open Night. (1952). Rpt. in Twentieth - Century
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Pritchad, William. Frost: A Literary Life Reconsidered. USA: Oxford University Press, 1984.
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Richman, Robert. "In Search of Edward Thomas." The New Criterion. (1982). Rpt. in Twentieth
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Strong, Beret. The Poetic Avant - Garde. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1997. Print.
Weygandt, Cornelius. "Realists of the Countryside." The Time of Yeats: English Poetry of To-
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