The Art of Twentieth-Century American Poetry

Written by a leading critic, this invigorating introduction to modernist American poetry conveys the excitement that can be generated by a careful reading of modernist poems. Encourages readers to identify with the modernists’ sense of the revolutionary possibilities of their art. Embraces four generations of modernist American poets up through to the 1980s. Gives readers a sense of the ambitions, the disillusionments and the continuities of modernist poetry. Includes close readings of particular poems which show how readers can use these works to connect with what concerns them.

Preface and Acknowledgments vi List of Abbreviations x 1 Introduction: The Art of Twentieth-Century American Poetry: An Overview 1 2 The New Realism in Modernist Poetry: Pound and Williams 11 3 The Doctrine of Impersonality and Modernism’s War on Rhetoric: Eliot, Loy, and Moore 52 4 How Modernist Poetics Failed and Efforts at Renewal: Williams, Oppen, and Hughes 97 5 The Return to Rhetoric in Modernist Poetry: Stevens and Auden 126 6 Modernist Dilemmas and Early Post-Modernist Responses 157 Notes 215 Works Cited 229 Further Reading 234 Index 243