“Before Disaster” is one of Yvor Winters’s most frequently quoted poems. Donald Davie foregrounded it in his introduction to the

. The poem is dated “Winter 1932- 3” and is about the rise of Fascism in Europe (“Fool and scoundrel guide the State”). It compares international politics with cars speeding down the California freeway, still a relatively new and terrifying sight in the early 1930s. The trochaic tetrameter leads inexorably towards “large, sweeping moral statements” (Pinsky 2007) about the “ranks of nations”:

Evening traffic homeward burns Swift and even on the turns, Drifting weight in triple rows, Fixed relation and repose. This one edges out and by, Inch by inch with steady eye. But should error be increased, Mass and moment

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Citation: Forsyth, Neil. ""Before Disaster"". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 March 2015 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=35619, accessed 21 November 2024.]

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