Selected poems

Asked what problems most perplexed "young men at present" Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861) replied "a growing sense of discrepancy".

His wry and wise poetry explores the tensions of a time of radical changes in the religious, political and literary landscape.

He had a sharp eye for absurdity. Clough was a writer of wide interests and liberal sympathies, vividly idiomatic and sensuous, delighting in the detail and variety of everyday life.

His technical dexterity is a delight: the poems encompass satire and lyric, dialogue, plot and contemporary reference.

His narrative poem "The Bothie of Tober-Na-Vuolich" and the epistolary "Amours de Voyage" have the momentum and social precision of novels, capturing a precise image of the Victorian world of the 1840s.

This volume includes a selection of the full range of Clough's poetry, with a detailed introduction and annotations by Shirley Chew.