Alfred Noyes
Alfred Noyes (1880–1958) was an English poet and writer best known for the narrative poem “The Highwayman.”
The Highwayman: A narrative poem by Alfred Noyes about a highwayman, Bess, and a fatal betrayal. This poem became Noyes’s signature work and exemplifies his dramatic ballad style.
Oxford University: A collegiate research university in Oxford, England, founded in 1096. Noyes studied at Exeter College, though he left without taking a degree.
Rupert Brooke: An English poet associated with the Georgian poets and remembered for his First World War sonnets. Brooke and Noyes belonged to overlapping early twentieth-century poetic circles.
Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom: An honorary position recognizing a poet for service to the British Crown and national occasions. Noyes was considered for the office but was not appointed.
The Barrel-Organ: A long poem by Alfred Noyes, published in 1904, depicting street life and social contrasts in London. Its musical rhythms helped establish Noyes’s reputation as a poet.
Exeter College, Oxford: A constituent college of the University of Oxford, founded in 1314. Noyes studied here and began publishing poetry while an undergraduate.
John Masefield: An English poet and writer who served as Poet Laureate from 1930 to 1967. Masefield shared Noyes’s interest in narrative verse and accessible poetic forms.
Modernism: A broad cultural movement that challenged inherited artistic forms and conventions in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Noyes criticized modernist poetry, making the movement a key context for his literary reception.
Drake: A narrative poem by Alfred Noyes about the English naval commander Francis Drake. This ambitious poem extends Noyes’s interest in historical narrative beyond the ballad.
The Monthly Review: An English literary periodical founded in 1749 and published until 1845. Noyes’s first volume of poetry appeared in 1902, after early work in the periodical press.