Moore, Nicholas

Nicholas Moore, (born Nov. 16, 1918, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, Eng.—died 1986), one of the “New Apocalypse” English poets of the 1940s who reacted against the preoccupation with social and political issues of the 1930s by turning toward romanticism.

The son of G.E. Moore, classicist and Cambridge philosopher, he published an important literary review, Seven (1938–40), while a Cambridge undergraduate and was a conscientious objector during World War II. Most of his verse was published in the war years: The Island and the Cattle and A Wish in Season (both 1941), The Cabaret, the Dancer, the Gentleman (1942), and The Glass Tower (1944). After editing poetry magazines in London, he wrote little until Resolution and Identity appeared in a limited edition in 1970. Spleen (1973) presented 30 variations on a poem by Charles Baudelaire. Longings of the Acrobats (1990), a selection of his poetry, was published posthumously.