Twentieth–Century British and Irish Poetry: Hardy to Mahon

Twentieth–Century British and Irish Poetry offers an accessible, imaginative, and highly stimulating guide to the criticism of British and Irish poetry in the twentieth century.

Through an insightful narrative – which places each article in context, drawing out the relevant themes, genres, and historical background – Michael O′Neill knits together contributions by major critics, as well as essays by a number of celebrated poet–critics, including Peter McDonald, Andrew Motion, and Tom Paulin. Featured poets include Eliot, Yeats, Owen, Auden, MacDiarmid, Muldoon, Mahon, and many others.

An invaluable guide to the ways in which a remarkable and evolving body of poetry has been interpreted, this isa unique and wide ranging collection of important critical reflection on canonical and emerging voices in the British and Irish poetic tradition.

Acknowledgements.

Introduction.

1 Modern Poetry: Transition and Trauma (Thomas Hardy, Edward Thomas and Wilfred Owen).

Thomas Hardy
Extract from British Poetry in the Age of Modernism (Peter Howarth).

Edward Thomas
Extract from The Poetry of Edward Thomas (Andrew Motion).

Wilfred Owen
Extract from Poetry of Mourning (Jahan Ramazani).

2 Forms of Modernism: Things Fall Apart (W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot and D. H. Lawrence).

W. B. Yeats
Extract from Our Secret Discipline (Helen Vendler).

T. S. Eliot
Extract from He Do the Police in Different Voices (Calvin Bedient).

D. H. Lawrence
Extract from ′Hibiscus and Salvia Flowers′ (Tom Paulin).

3 Poetry of the Thirties: Between Two Fires (W. H. Auden, Louis MacNeice and Stephen Spender).

W. H. Auden
Extract from ′The 1930s Poetry of W. H. Auden′ (Michael O′Neill).

Louis MacNeice
Extract from Louis MacNeice (Peter McDonald).

Stephen Spender
Extracts from The Ironic Harvest (Geoffrey Thurley).

4 Poetry of the Forties: Realism and Rhetoric (Keith Douglas and Dylan Thomas).

Keith Douglas
Extract from ′I in Another Place′ (Geoffrey Hill).

Dylan Thomas
Extract from The Romantic Survival (John Bayley).

5 Post–War Poetry: Feature less Morning, Featureless Night (Philip Larkin and the Movement).

Philip Larkin
Extract from Out of Reach (Andrew Swarbrick).

The Movement
Extract from The Movement (Blake Morrison).

6 Beyond the Movement: No Bloodless Myth (Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath and Geoffrey Hill).

Ted Hughes
Extract from ′Ted Hughes: The Double Voice′ (Margaret Dickie).

Sylvia Plath
Extract from Sylvia Plath and the Theatre of Mourning (Christina Britzolakis).

Geoffrey Hill
Extract from ′History to the Defeated′ (Alan Robinson).

7 Situated Sequences and Marginal Voices (Basil Bunting, Hugh MacDiarmid, Thomas Kinsella, Stevie Smith and Tony Harrison).

Hugh MacDiarmid, Thomas Kinsella, and Basil Bunting
Extracts from The Modern Poetic Sequence (M. L. Rosenthal and Sally M. Gall).

Stevie Smith
Extract from A History of Twentieth–Century British Women′s Poetry (Jane Dowson and Alice Entwistle).

Tony Harrison
Extract from The Poetry of Tony Harrison (Luke Spencer).

8 Northern Irish Poetry: The Poles of Our Condition (Seamus Heaney and Derek Mahon).

Seamus Heaney
Extracts from The Poetry of Seamus Heaney (Neil Corcoran).

Derek Mahon
Extract from Poetry in the Wars (Edna Longley).

Afterword.

Recommended Reading.

Index.

Michael O Neill is Professor of English and Director of the Institute of Advanced Study at Durham University, UK. He has published numerous books, chapters, and articles on many aspects of Romantic, Victorian, and contemporary poetry. He received the Cholmondeley Award for Poets for his own poetry in 1990.

Madeleine Callaghan received her PhD from the University of Durham, UK. Her research interests extend throughout the Romantic period s poetry and prose and twentieth–century and Victorian poetry. She is currently preparing her thesis for publication and working on a new monograph on poetic influence in Wordsworth, Byron and Yeats.

The editors have admirably carried out their self–imposed tasks ... The somewhat complicated arrangement is amply justified if one considers the work as a classroom tool, aimed primarily at giving a student audience food for thought, Helen Goethals.   (Cercles, 2012)