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 36
... thought how paltry , how vulgar , what a mean act ! I despised myself and the voice of my accursed human education . And I thought of the albatross , And I wished he would come back , my snake . The key to this whole poem's success ...
... thought how paltry , how vulgar , what a mean act ! I despised myself and the voice of my accursed human education . And I thought of the albatross , And I wished he would come back , my snake . The key to this whole poem's success ...
Page 56
... thought and emotion that are often a part of this process of verbal articulation . At its best , this not only presents the poem to us as a new kind of typographic object , but can also seem to give us an actual catching of thought on ...
... thought and emotion that are often a part of this process of verbal articulation . At its best , this not only presents the poem to us as a new kind of typographic object , but can also seem to give us an actual catching of thought on ...
Page 159
... thought and feeling which are entirely unexplored as yet . The fullest exploitation of language sound and rhythm , assonance and sensuous associations , is made in lyric poetry . * Northrop Frye , finding himself in the same ...
... thought and feeling which are entirely unexplored as yet . The fullest exploitation of language sound and rhythm , assonance and sensuous associations , is made in lyric poetry . * Northrop Frye , finding himself in the same ...
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