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Hayley Westphal
ENGL 5222
Dr. Cannan
11/04/2013

Gordon Bottomley, Georgian Poets, and the Revival of Verse Drama

How much can be said of a poet whose works were largely published in private? Or that

of a privately published poet’s contribution to the written world? For poetry of the late 19th to

20th century, it was largely restricted to collections and volumes, its impact lost with the rise of

the Victorian era. In the midst of this, a small group of poets sought to revive the classical

workings of poetry within theatre’s walls. Of this group of writers, one held onto the enduring

themes of verse throughout all his works. With the high talent of diction and articulation earning

him the recognition by his famous contemporaries, Gordon Bottomley implemented the use of

verse by taking on some of Shakespeare’s greatest plays. He took on this revival by creating

prequels to some of Shakespeare’s greatest works, Macbeth and King Lear. Gruach centers on

Lady Macbeth as a young woman, and provides captivating insight into the development of her

character into the villainous female of Shakespeare’s work. It was through works such as these

that Bottomley allowed for an examination of poetry’s role in the theatre, contributing to a

movement among these dramatists, and paving the way for other writers to revive this halted

genre of poetry’s place on the stage.

Born in February 1874 in Yorkshire, Bottomley was set to follow in his father’s footsteps

in the banking business. At the age of eighteen, he contracted an illness that resulted in a

condition that left him as an invalid for much of his younger years, and he left the business to

pursue a life in writing. Much of his life is unknown, as he was a solitary man. Bottomley’s

illness kept him out of London, giving him minimal contact with fellow writers of the time. He
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married Emily Burton, a young artist, in 1905. Together they owned a home called the Sheiling

in Lancashire. This was opened up to various painters and poets as a getaway of sorts. Their

involvement in the world of the arts was due largely to Emily, whose works were exhibited in

Liverpool at the Walker Art Gallery between 1898 and 1901 (Blunden). Bottomley’s tubercular

condition prevented him from extensive activities, giving him much opportunity to write.

Although he remained sickly most of his life, he and Emily did set aside some time to travel

throughout Europe while he continued in his career.

While he was often overshadowed by the more successful works of his contemporaries, it

was clear that he did possess a flair for words. David A. Robertson’s “Contemporary English

Poets: Gordon Bottomley” describes: “It was Mr. Masefield who in 1904 declared Bottomley’s

lyrics to be ‘as good as any now written except those of Mr. Yeats, Mr. Bridges and Mr. Sturge

Moore’” (179-180). Bottomley was known within his field, which proved to be a strategic move

in implementing the movement to bring back the combination of poetry and drama. Much of this

notoriety among his fellow poets manifested itself through letters. Bottomley maintained

correspondence with many people, including artist Paul Nash. He kept in touch with Nash often,

and their mentor-mentee relationship soon blossomed into a close friendship.

As Bottomley moved forward in the writing of his plays, Nash assisted by drawing up

stage sets and building models of settings, some of which were used in Bottomley’s staged

productions (Wilson, 40). Such collaborations and writing went largely unnoticed, as Bottomley

himself stated “I have no biography” (Blunden). It was not only Nash whom he corresponded

with, but with various other colleagues and friends. His plays and poem books were rarely

without a dedication of some sort. In his play Gruach, there is even a foreword addressed to

“C.H.S.” and “C.S.R.,” with a long poem serving as a dedication (Bottomley, 2). This was a
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common theme for him, and it raises the question of who he was dedicating these works too.

Knowledge of his writing is scarce today, as much went unpublished or was published for his

own private use. In 1896, a collection of his poetry titled The Mickle Drede was published. Verse

was Bottomley’s forte, and he wrote copious amounts of it. This extensive work within verse

earned him notoriety of being “elegiac” and “epic-minded” despite being pushed to the fringe of

his fellow poets (Blunden). An example of such elegiac qualities comes from the foreword to

Gruach: “Upon the Dial of the vanished Vale / Were counted chosen fortunate hours alone; /

And there began the invention and the mood” (Bottomley, 3). During the successes of his poetry

collection, Bottomley began to shift his sights to a prominent movement: the re-ignition of

poetry’s place in the theatre.

Bottomley always had an interest in theatre. What sparked his curiosity in the first place

is not known. However, his admiration for classic art and drama held ties to the Pre-Raphaelite

movement where artistic appreciation reigned, a commonality he shared with Paul Nash (Wilson,

39-42). This was part of what Bottomley’s interest entailed in incorporating poetry with the

stage. Poetic drama had an enduring history. The Grecian tragedies along with the works of

Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Jonson had stood the test of time for centuries, until the Victorian era

took center stage. The Victorian era was a time of literary and theatrical reinvention. The

development of the novel directed attention towards prose and narrative and steered away from

verse. This new method of storytelling injected itself into society, dissolving the general

appreciation of this classical method of poetic drama. The audience was now engaged in prose,

and verse was thrown to the wayside, as “audiences fed on prose-realism are likely to respond

only to more prose-realism” (Fallon, 579). For the verse dramatists, the goal was to defeat

prose’s reign on the stage. Drawing inspirations from all forms of older literature, the shift back
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into the poetic language was a key area of concern. Many of these dramatists took on William

Shakespeare’s plays in an ambitious attempt to rewrite, revise, or write completely new plays

altogether. This is where Bottomley centralized his work in the poetic drama.

The revival of poetic drama was focused on realism as well, but in a way that shifted the

audience back into the appreciation of its form: “Whatever the subject-matter of drama, and

Ibsen has shown us that it may be social complexity, Bernard Shaw that it may be revolutionary

doctrine, and Maeterlinck that it may be the most delicate and subtle of intuitions, its form must

be as perfect as that of a sonnet” (Willcox, 95). Poets and dramatists alike reveled in the

opportunity to revive this subdued art. Bottomley was surely not the only one to participate in

this revival. W.B. Yeats was a key author of the time, whose works outshined those of Bottomley

to an extreme. G.B. Shaw, Henrik Ibsen, and various others rose to fame with this newfound

excitement over the incorporation of poetry and the stage. Whether it was Bottomley’s illness or

overall quiet nature that kept him from such fame, it cannot be certain. His contribution to this

movement helped accelerate the re-acceptance of poetry in drama. Known as “The Georgian

Poets,” they were viewed in a rather unflattering light. The supposed founder, Edward Marsh,

was regarded as a “pompous, mindless conservative…a monocled dandy who failed pathetically

the mark the vital artistic, philosophical, and social currents of his own time” (Simon, 122), and

it was this stereotype that formed the general opinion of the Georgian poets in their entirety.

The focuses that stemmed from Marsh’s first implementations in the circle of the

Georgian Poets stayed on the experience of art. For them, its value was found in the

independence of the viewer (Simon, 125). This led to several flawed ideas, which made it

difficult for verse drama to become a success. It was well known that these poets – including

Lascelles Abercombie, Davies, D.H. Lawrence, and others – had refused to lesser poetry to any
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other genre. This unwillingness to submit some of the power to drama left pieces to seem narrow

and flat. Their work was labeled “anti-Victorian,” and scoffed at by the blossoming Victorian

poets who reigned in what was thought by the Georgians to be the “empty rhetoric” that held fast

to “formulas that ensured public approval” (Simon, 126-127). However, Bottomley did reach

some published fame when Marsh decided to include King Lear’s Wife in his book Georgian

Poetry (Simon, 131). It was criticized for abandoning Shakespeare’s conventions, but still was

felt to be accomplished because it managed a “radically narrowed but more sharply

particularized statement of human experience” (Simon, 131). True to the Georgian Poets,

Bottomley had achieved a work that exemplified poetry’s inclusion and domination on the stage.

Yet it was a short-lived one, as Bottomley’s excelling in poetry was dulled by inexperience in

how drama operated.

Gordon Bottomley’s lack of knowledge about theatre did not keep his plays from being

produced. He was met with success in both King Lear’s Wife and Gruach. With his well-

regarded talents for writing, Gordon Bottomley penned King Lear’s Wife, which gained the title

of “masterpiece” in 1916 (Stringer, 77). Following several years later was Gruach. Produced by

the Scottish National Theatre, the prequel to Macbeth was well acknowledged for the exploration

of Lady Macbeth’s, named Gruach, psychological character via dramatic verse and structure

(Robertson, 180). Gruach was awarded the Femina-Vie Heureuse Prize in 1923. The literary

prize was given to the author “who has received insufficient recognition…and most worthy of

representing English literature abroad” and was decided by “a committee of French women

acting on the recommendations of a committee of English women writers” (Millett, 281). The

award hinted at the impact his portrayal of Lady Macbeth had on the feminine audience, which

surely would aid in the expansion of public recognition.

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Although the award was significant, the public was not nearly as captivated as Bottomley

may have hoped (Blunden). Verse drama was still in its infantile stages of redevelopment. It was

the rising successes of other poetic dramatists around him aided in the resurrection of what had

grown obscure in the bright light of prose and novels. Bottomley was no small contributor to

this, however small his pool of fame was. Regarded highly by his peers, Bottomley still did not

rise to popular fame among the people of England. He travelled to Scotland, where he felt it was

“a more welcoming home for his experiments in verse drama” (Blunden). This was where his

most noteworthy performance of Gruach occurred, in 1923, at the Scottish National Theatre

(Stringer, 77). This led to his continued work within the Scottish theatre scene, including several

movements that helped to propel the incorporation of poetry with the stage.

Although it cannot be said for certain, it seems that the success of King Lear’s Wife and

Gruach reflects on the timelessness of poetic drama and its overarching impact throughout

history. While prose and realism were the valued components in the early parts of Bottomley’s

career, the ease with which poetry was reintroduced into the world of theatre may lend some

credit to the established successes set forth by such poets and playwrights as Shakespeare

himself. What Bottomley and his colleagues were doing was not radical. Rather, it showed a

reverence for the classics, an enthusiasm for the historical implications of poetry in drama.

Advertised in a 1922 edition of Publisher’s Weekly, his plays Gruach and Britain’s Daughter are

stated to be “real achievements by a master of the poetry inhering in old times and old places”

(Publisher’s Weekly, 146). While Bottomley may have sacrificed fame by beginning the process

of poetic drama early in its second life, his impact on its continuation bears testament to his

extensive workings with verse.

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Works Cited

Blunden, Edmund, ‘Bottomley, Gordon (1874–1948)’, rev. Mark Pottle, Oxford Dictionary of

National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Sept 2013. Web. 28 Oct.

2013. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/31980

Bottomley, Gordon. "Gruach." Trans. Array Gruach and Britain's Daughter: Two Plays by

Gordon Bottomley. London: Constable & Company Limited, 1921. 6-66. Print.

<http://archive.org/stream/gruachbritainsda00bottuoft

Millett, Fred B. "Literary Prize Winners." The English Journal. National Council of Teachers of
English. 24.4. (Apr. 1935): 269-282. Web. 28 Oct. 2013.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/804684

Fallon, Gabriel. "Poetry and the Theatre." No Time for Comedy by S. N. Behrman; An Italian

Straw Hat by Labiche; Marc-Michel; Thomas Walton; The Bower of Wandel. A Lyrical

Drama in Three Scenes by Gordon Bottomley; The Flame. A Play in One Act by Austin

Clarke; Lovers' Meeting. A Tragedy in Three Acts by Louis D'Alton. The Irish Monthly.

Review by Gabriel Fallon. The Irish Jesuit Province. 69.822. (Dec. 1941): 577-585. Print.

28 Oct. 2013. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20514958

Publisher's Weekly. 102. (1922): 146. Print.

Robertson, David A. "Contemporary English Poets: Gordon Bottomley." The English Journal.

National Council of Teachers of English. 15.3. (Mar. 1926): 177-181. Print. 28 Oct.

2013. http://www.jstor.org/stable/802483

Simon, Myron. "The Georgian Poetic." The Bulletin of the Midwest Modern Language

Association. Midwest Modern Language Association. 2.1. (1969): 121-135. Print. 28 Oct.

2013. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1314743
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Stringer, Jenny. The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Literature In English. London:

Oxford University Press, 1996. 244. Print.

Willcox, Louise Collier. "The Poetic Drama." The North American Review. University of

Northern Iowa. 186.622 (Sept. 1907): 91-97. Web. 29 Oct. 2013.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/25105984

Wilson, Arnold. "Gordon Bottomley & Paul Nash: Pre-Raphaelite Heirs?." Journal of William

Morris Studies. 14.2 (2001): 39-42. Web. 29 Oct. 2013.

<http://www.morrissociety.org/publications/JWMS/SP01.14.2.Wilson.pdf>.