Enslaved

Poet, novelist, dramatist and journalist, Masefield's literary career was a varied one. He went to sea as a youth and his first volumes of poems earned him the title of Poet of the Sea. He was a prolific writer, publishing poetry and novels as well as taking on editorial tasks. In 1930 he became Poet Laureate, a post he retained until his death 37 years later. Enslaved is based upon two stories: one, an anecdote told by Burton in his Anatomy of Melancholy (Kessinger Publishing ISBNs 0766126293, 0766126307), of a young man who, when his love was captured by pirates, waded into the sea after the pirates, and asked them to take him with her; the other, a story in The Thousand-and-One Nights, of a lover who followed his love into the Harem of an Eastern Prince, was discovered there, threatened with death, and then, on a generous impulse, pardoned and dismissed with gifts for his love's sake. Contents: Enslaved; The Hounds of Hell; Cap on Head; Sonnets; The Passing Strange; Animula; The Lemmings; Forget; On Growing Old; and Lyric.


Genre: Literary Fiction