Edwin Muir Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Russell Fraser

Critical Essay by Russell Fraser

SOURCE: Fraser, Russell. “Edwin Muir's Other Eden.” The Sewanee Review 108, no. 1 (January-March 2000): 78-92.

In the following essay, Fraser elaborates on images of Eden and Christian themes in several of Muir's poems, including “The Journey Back,” “The Myth,” and “In Love for Long.”

T. S. Eliot, patting Edwin Muir and Scotland on the head, said Muir was among the poets that Scotland should always be proud of. On the other hand there hadn't been many. Muir, however, said harsh things about Scotland. He saw it emptied of itself after the Act of Union (1707), and he called Burns and Scott “sham bards of a sham nation.” “Annie Laurie” made him sick. But he much loved that world, and his last volume is entitled One Foot in Eden. As titles go, this one seems a little winsome. Muir's Eden includes the serpent, though. That was how you knew it...
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