Book description
The work of the poet Peter Redgrove is one of the great unexplored
treasures of late twentieth century literature. His prolific output
presents an intriguing variety of personae: magician, scientist,
lover, psychologist, joker, madman. It is only now, with the
publication of his Collected Poems and this biography, that we
can see how and why these personae developed - and discover the full
depth and range of this visionary writer.
Born into an apparently conventional middle-class family that was in
reality deeply disturbed, the poet finally emerged: transforming
himself from the neurotic, Oedipal young scientist, through a process
of mental breakdown, insulin coma therapy, erotic revelation and the
discovery of poetic companionship at Cambridge - and particularly his
friendship and rivalry with Ted Hughes.
Neil Roberts explores the inner story of this emergence, and
Redgrove's later development through marriage, family life, the
fellowship of the 'Group', alcoholic excess, infidelity and marital
breakdown to his triumphant later partnership with Penelope Shuttle.
We also discover, for the first time, some darker secrets: his
fascination with Aleister Crowley, his damaged and damaging
relationship with his father, and the lifelong sexual fetish which he
called the 'Game'. Drawing on the poet's intimate journals and
correspondence, and interviews with family, friends and colleagues,
A Lucid Dreamer tells the exceptionally inward and revealing
story of an astonishing creative life.
Neil Roberts was born in Manchester and educated in Latymer Upper
School, London, and
Clare College, Cambridge. He is Emeritus Professor of English
Literature at the University of Sheffield, where he has taught for
thirty-eight years. He wrote the first critical study of Peter
Redgrove, The Lover, the Dreamer and the World, and knew the
poet well during the last twenty years of his life. His other books
include Ted Hughes: A Literary Life, and works on D. H.
Lawrence, George Eliot and George Meredith. He lives in Derbyshire.
Peter Redgrove was born in 1932 and studied Natural Sciences at
Cambridge. He was also a novelist, playwright and co-author (with
Penelope Shuttle) of The Wise Wound, a revolutionary study of
the human fertility cycle. Among his many awards were the Guardian
Fiction Prize, the Prix Italia and the Queen's Gold Medal for
Poetry. He died in 2003.
