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FeaturesNovember 2003 Writing for antiquity: the ironies of D.J. Enright by Paul Dean An affectionate reappraisal of the D. J. Enright, the English poet and man of letters who died last year. If the name and work of D. J. Enright, who died on New Year’s Eve, 2002 at the age of eighty-two, are little known in the United States, that is not surprising; the same is true in his native England. The circumstances of his life and the cast of his mind kept him on the periphery of our cultural life, an old-style roving academic and social commentator reminiscent, in different ways, of William Empson and Richard Hoggart. His poetry, novels, and criticism fell into neglect and he seemed fated to be known mainly as a skilful anthologist. He cultivated a doggedly unfashionable persona and quoted with approval Charles Lamb’s reaction to an editorial letter of rejection: “Damn the age! I will write for Antiquity.” Then, late in life, he regained public attention with a trilogy of books whose subtitles indicate their resistance to classification: Interplay: A Kind of Commonplace Book (1995), Play Resumed: A Journal ... This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchaseSubscribe to TNC (Print and Online editions) Subscribe to TNC (Online only) This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 22 November 2003, on page 30 Copyright © 2012 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Writing-for-antiquity--the-ironies-of-D-J--Enright-1650
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