New Apocalyptics

The New Apocalyptics were a poetry grouping in the UK in the 1940s, taking their name from the anthology The New Apocalypse (1939), which was edited by J. F. Hendry (1912–1986) and Henry Treece. There followed the further anthologies The White Horseman (1941) and Crown and Sickle (1944).

Their reaction against the political realism of much Thirties poetry drew for support upon D. H. Lawrence (Apocalypse, 1931), surrealism, myth, and expressionism.

The Scottish connection

Others closely associated were the Scottish (as Hendry was) poets G. S. Fraser and Norman MacCaig - though the latter saw his work from Riding Lights (1955) onwards as part of "the long haul towards lucidity" after his Apocalyptic start.

There was quite an overlap with the Scottish Renaissance group of writers, though not necessarily by publication in London. Others sometimes mentioned in this connection include Ruthven Todd, Tom Scott, Hamish Henderson, Edwin Morgan, Burns Singer, and William Montgomerie. This grouping was fairly represented in Modern Scottish Poetry (1946). Welsh and Irish poets were also prominent.