Robert Nichols (poet)

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For other people named Robert Nichols, see Robert Nichols (disambiguation).

Robert Nichols
John Bowyer Buchanan Nichols
(father)

Robert Malise Bowyer Nichols (6 September 1893 – 17 December 1944) was an English writer, known as a

First World War, and a playwright
.

Life and career

The son of the poet

John Bowyer Buchanan Nichols, Robert Nichols was educated at Winchester College and Trinity College, Oxford. Commissioned into the Royal Field Artillery in 1914, Nichols served on the Western Front, including the Battle of Loos and the Battle of the Somme, until invalided home with shell shock
in August 1916.

He began to give poetry readings, in 1917. In 1918 he was a member of an official British propaganda mission to the USA, where he also gave readings.[1] One of his best known poems of the conflict is The Assault, which "evokes the destructive havoc and the emotional turbulence of an attack in verse of unusual freedom and energy"[2][3]

After the war he moved in social circles in London. He was a protege of

Christ and a future war.[5] These fictions were collected in Nichols' book Fantastica.[5]

He lived in Germany and Austria in 1933–34. He then settled in the south of France, leaving in June 1940. He died at the age of 51, and is buried at St Mary's Church, Lawford, Essex, next to the family home, Lawford Hall.

The grave of Robert Nichols in the churchyard of St Mary's Church, Lawford

On 11 November 1985, Nichols was among 16 Great War poets commemorated on a slate stone unveiled in

Poet's Corner.[6] The inscription on the stone was written by a fellow Great War poet, Wilfred Owen. It reads: "My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity."[7]

Works

Musical settings of plays and poetry

In 1919, the English composer

E. J. Moeran set Blue-eyed Spring for voice and piano in 1932[11] and used poetry from the unfinished play Don Juan Tenorio the Great for his Nocturne for baritone solo, chorus and orchestra of 1935.[12] Christian Darnton set five poems by Nichols in his 1938 work Swansong, for soprano and orchestra.[13][14]

References

  1. ^ Anne & William Charlton (22 August 2009). "Prose & Poetry - Robert Nichols: A Poet Rediscovered". firstworldwar.com. Retrieved 19 March 2017.
  2. ISBN 978-0-19-212271-1
    .
  3. ^ Poemhunter.com
  4. ^ Pearson, John. Facades (1980), p.117
  5. ^
    ISBN 0-89356-450-8
  6. ^ "Poets".
  7. ^ "Preface".
  8. ^ Sorabji archive
  9. ^ Peter Warlock Society: Complete Works of Peter Warlock
  10. ^ Music Sales Classical
  11. ^ National Library of Australia
  12. ^ National Library of Australia
  13. ISBN 978-1-84383-898-2
    .
  14. ^ The LiederNet Archive

Sources

External links

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