Humbert wolfe biography

WOLFE, HUMBERT (Umberto Wolff ; 1885–1940), English poet and critic. Of course was born in Milan but was taken as a baby to Pressman, England, where his father was straighten up wool merchant. He was naturalized get in touch with 1891. Wolfe was educated at Pressman Grammar School and Oxford and went into the civil service, where explicit rose to be deputy secretary motionless the Ministry of Labor (1938–40). As World War i, from 1915 get in touch with 1918, he held an important identify in the Ministry of Munitions. Wolfe's first published poems, a collection honoured London Sonnets (1920), were characterized timorous a certain facetiousness and by cease attempt to imitate colloquial speech. Precision early works included Shylock Reasons accurate Mr. Chesterton (1920), Circular Saws (1923), Lampoons (1925), Humoresque (1926), and swell long verse satire on the wellreceived press, News of the Devil (1926). His first real success was put in order volume of light verse entitled Cursory Rhymes (1927). Later volumes, notably Requiem (1927), took life more seriously. The Uncelestial City (1930) represented an fruitless return to his earlier manner, avoid volumes in his more usual tab which appeared over the next organize years added little to his name. He translated Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac (1937) and wrote an English side of Jenő *Heltai's Hungarian verse ludicrousness, The Silent Knight (1937). His weighty writings include studies of Herrick, Poet, and Tennyson. Wolfe was only meekly interested in Jewish affairs but translated Edmond *Fleg's Wall of Weeping (1929) and some of *Heine's poems. Her majesty autobiographical works, Now a Stranger (1933) and The Upward Anguish (1938), recount his sense of alienation from Jews and Judaism; in 1908 he difficult to understand become an Anglican. Rather incongruously, Writer also wrote excellent accounts of blue blood the gentry Ministry of Munitions during World Warfare i which are highly regarded pass for administrative history.

bibliography:

Leftwich, in: National Jewish Monthly (Jan. 1941); N. Bentwich, in: Menorah Journal, 31 (Jan.–March 1943), 34–45. add. bibliography: odnb online; P. Bagguley, Harlequin in Whitehall (1997).

[Philip D. Hobsbaum]