The title, Strange Likeness, is taken from the 1971 collection Mercian Hymns by Geoffrey Hill, in which the reign of Offa, an Anglo-Saxon king, is merged with twentieth century events. However, beyond some discussion in the introduction, the work of Hill is not dealt with in Chris Jones’ analyses of the uses of Old English in Twentieth Century poetry. Jones’ gives a perfectly reasonable explanation of this exclusion, although as Hill is a notoriously difficult poet it would have been fascinating to read an analysis of one of his finest books. That said, as a title it sums up perfectly the aims and conclusions of the book. Jones puts forward the case that Old English, the language of Anglo Saxons, was an important aspect in 20^th Century poetry; its ‘strange likeness’ allowing four poets who were all in their own ways distanced from the core English tradition, either by geography, politics, or sexual orientation, to find new ways of linking themselves to the past whilst still creating something wholly new.

The four major poets to whom Jones turns are Ezra Pound, WH Auden, Edwin Morgan and Seamus Heaney. What unites them in this book is Chris Jones’ convincing argument that not only did Old English make a strong impression on them as students, but that its presence was felt beyond direct translation or appropriation and in fact formed the bedrock for much of their mature poetic practice. Starting with Ezra Pound, Jones goes back to his time studying Anglo Saxon at Hamilton College and shows the lasting influence this was to have on Pound’s unique versification. Jones demonstrates that the influence did not end with the Pound’s ‘Seafarer’ poem, written in cod Old English, nor the more mature Canto I, but in fact continued throughout the 120 Cantos. With WH Auden, Jones looks not just at the obvious alliterative-tradition debt owed by ‘The Age of Anxiety’, but also at much earlier works, such as ‘The Wanderer’, which he neatly argues to be a ‘coming out’ poem of sorts. Edwin Morgan, perhaps the least known of Jones’ four poets, is the author of, amongst other things, a translation of Beowulf which receives a stirring defence in this book, far more so than the more recent translation by Seamus Heaney, Jones’ final subject.

Jones’ attention to detail throughout is exemplary; he makes use not only of unpublished drafts and letters, but of university notebooks and marginal scribbling, at times taking literary criticism to the forensic level of detective work. The only fault with Jones’ writing is that some of the attempts at humour fall a little flat, for example when he jokes that “Ezra Pound really knew his Anglo-Saxon onions”, the footnote that “C.T. Onions revised some of the later editions of Henry Sweet’s An Anglo Saxon Reader” will not allow you retrospective laugh: jokes that need to be explained by footnotes are rarely that funny. However, this is a very small fault in a very valuable book. For students of Old English this book will reveal the extent to which elements of the language are still being used in literature; for students of 20^th poetry it will make more accessible this chronological distant language which has been so important for a number of great writers.

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