Ronald Bottrall
Ronald Bottrall, born Francis James Ronald Bottrall on September 2, 1906, in Camborne, Cornwall, England, was an English poet and educator whose career spanned several decades. He studied at Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he was recognized by literary critic F. R. Leavis as a promising poet. His early work, heavily influenced by Leavis and Ezra Pound, was published in his first collection, *The Loosening, and Other Poems*, during his time as a lecturer in Finland. Bottrall also taught at prestigious institutions in the United States and Singapore and held various roles in the British Council after World War II. Despite publishing eleven poetry collections and receiving numerous accolades, including the Order of the British Empire, his later works received mixed reviews, leading to a decline in public and critical interest. While some contemporaries, like T.S. Eliot, praised his talent, Bottrall's legacy is now often overshadowed by the changing literary landscape. Nevertheless, his connections with notable literary figures suggest that his contributions to poetry merit further exploration. Bottrall passed away on June 25, 1989.
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Ronald Bottrall
Poet
- Born: September 2, 1906
- Birthplace: Camborne, Cornwall, England
- Died: June 25, 1989
Biography
Poet Ronald Bottrall was born Francis James Ronald Bottrall on September 2, 1906, in Camborne, Cornwall, England. He was the son of Francis John Bottrall, a lay Methodist minister, and Clara Jane Rowe Bottrall. Educated at Redruth Country School, he won a scholarship to Pembroke College, Cambridge, in 1925. The Cambridge years were the most important and influential period of Bottrall’s life. He was one of a handful of young men tapped by literary critic F. R. Leavis for a promising literary career.
After leaving Cambridge, Bottrall took a position as a lecturer in English at the University of Helsinki, Finland, where he remained from 1929 to 1931. During this time, he composed the poems published in his first collection, The Loosening, and Other Poems. These poems were influenced by the critical theories of Leavis and by Bottrall’s reading of poet Ezra Pound. In his enormously influential New Bearings in English Poetry (1932), Leavis famously predicted that Bottrall would be an important force in poetry in the coming years. Likewise, T.S. Eliot, one of the leading poets of the period, also commended Bottrall’s work
In 1931, Bottrall accepted a Commonwealth Fund Fellowship and traveled to the United States, where he taught at Princeton University until 1933. Botrall next traveled to Singapore to become the Johore Professor of English Language and Literature at Raffles College, where he remained until 1937; in that year, he accepted the assistant directorship of the British Institute in Florence, a post he held for one year. He served briefly in the Air Ministry during World War II, and then became a British Council representative at various postings in Europe, Asia, and South America between 1941 and 1959. He also worked in the London office of the controller of British education between 1950 and 1954.
Bottrall continued to publish collections of poetry, including Farewell and Welcome in 1945 and Selected Poems in 1946. Both volumes received lukewarm reviews, and there was a general sense that Bottrall had not fulfilled the promise that earlier reviewers had predicted. In his lifetime, Bottrall published eleven books of poetry and edited several anthologies. He died on June 25, 1989.
Bottrall garnered many honors and awards during his lifetime, including the Order of the British Empire in 1949, the Coronation Medal in 1953, and the Syracuse International Poetry Prize in 1954. He was named a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1955, and in 1972 he was made a Knight of St. John. He also was named the Grande Ufficiale dell’Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana in 1973, and a Knight Commander, Order of St. John of Jerusalem, Malta, in 1977.
Through the years, Bottrall’s work generally has faded from public and critical interest. In a review of a book on Leavis, writer Martin Amis referred to Bottrall as a “vanished nonentity.” Nevertheless, the fact that he was so closely linked to Leavis as well as to poet W. H. Auden and other important writers of his generation suggests that while tastes have changed, Bottrall’s work remains worthy of examination.