Since his death in 1963, Louis MacNeice's critical standing has risen steadily. This new study addresses the contexts of his writing that are of greatest relevance to his place in modern poetry: his problematic relation to Ireland and his place in the largely English "thirties generation" with which he is often identified. The influence of these aspects on MacNeice's poetic development is studied in detail, addressing his relation to Yeats and Modernism and his conception of parable as a key imaginative response to these influences. Included also is the first study of the poet's revealing and little-known early writings. Arguing that MacNeice is a central figure in modern Irish and British poetry, this work sheds new light on the poems.