A Fool i’ the Forest : A Phantasmagoria

First published in 1925, and frequently compared to T.S.

Eliot’s The Waste Land, A Fool i’ the Forest is a modernist’s poetic expression of his ongoing struggles with overcoming the trauma of military service in the First World War. Taking its title from Shakespeare’s phantasmagoric Midsummer Night’s Dream, A Fool surveys three aspects of one character – ‘I’, Mezzetin and the Conjuror – as they struggle, and ultimately fail, to find a way to reconcile their differences and live with one another. Enriched with a fascinating introduction and explanatory notes by leading Aldington scholars Michael Copp and Elizabeth Vandiver, this centenary edition seeks to place A Fool firmly back into the canon of postwar poetry, from which it has been missing for too long.