American and British Verse in the Twentieth Century: The Poetry that MattersWhy is it that almost no one can quote more than a few words from any American or British poet since (say) Robert Lowell or Philip Larkin? asks critic and poet Colin Falck. This volume is a critical history of 20th-century poetry as well as a study of what the author sees as the decline of that poetry during the century's last three decades. Basing his argument in the ideas of English and German romanticism, and developing further the claims of his Myth, Truth and Literature (1994), Colin Falck provides philosophically grounded discussions of such issues as the need for modern poetry to be a poetry of experience, the relationship between poetry and philosophy, the triumph of talk as modern poetry's prevailing diction, the effects on poetry of postmodernist self-consciousness, the centrality of despair to the modern lyric, the means by which modern poetry can validly engage with history, the place of nature and myth in the poetic imagination, and the revelatory power of rhythm, meter and the singing line. as Hardy, Yeats, Eliot and Stevens (and from some of their 19th-century precursors) all the way through to such acclaimed poets as Jorie Graham and Hugo Williams. His argument calls for a middlebrow revival in response to the highbrow deviation of modernism and the late-20th-century professionalization of poetry. It ends with an ambitious claim for poetry as an inscription of reality as part of an aesthetic fundamentalism which may be the true religion of the future. |
From inside the book
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Page 90
... American poetry came to greatness only when American poets learned to express despair . No nineteenth - century American poet had been temperamentally able or willing to give American poetry its ' Dover Beach , ' and in choosing to ...
... American poetry came to greatness only when American poets learned to express despair . No nineteenth - century American poet had been temperamentally able or willing to give American poetry its ' Dover Beach , ' and in choosing to ...
Page 98
... American activity : American values , operating as a deeply buried internal censorship , have often made it difficult for the poet to get on with his or her despairing in a straightforward and unself - accusing way . It can hardly be ...
... American activity : American values , operating as a deeply buried internal censorship , have often made it difficult for the poet to get on with his or her despairing in a straightforward and unself - accusing way . It can hardly be ...
Page 221
... America's poetic tradition only occurred because the reality of America has finally caught up with American poetry ? Must American poetry in that case now be left to unravel itself , along with America , into separate sub - cultural sub ...
... America's poetic tradition only occurred because the reality of America has finally caught up with American poetry ? Must American poetry in that case now be left to unravel itself , along with America , into separate sub - cultural sub ...
Common terms and phrases
actual allowed already American American poetry artists become believe British called character close comes common continues critical cultural early effect Eliot emotional English example experience experiencing expression eyes face fact feel forms Frost give given hand happen heart hope human ideas imaginative interest John Berryman kind language later Lawrence leave less letter lines literary literature lives London look Lowell lyric matter meanings meter mind move nature never ordinary ourselves Oxford particular perhaps philosophical poem's poems poet poet's poetic poetry possible present probably question reader reality reason religion religious rhythms Robert seems seen sense shows situation sometimes sound speaker spiritual talk tells things thought traditional true truth turn twentieth century universal usually verse Whitman whole Wordsworth writing written Yeats York