Reading Postwar British and Irish Poetry (eBook)

Michael Thurston his Professor of English at Smith College. In addition to books on American political poets and the Underworld descent in twentieth-century poetry, he has published numerous essays on twentieth-century poetry. Nigel Alderman is Associate Professor of English at Mount Holyoke College. He has published on both nineteenth- and twentieth-century poetry.

Acknowledgments viii

1 Introduction: "Postwar," "British,"
"Irish," and "Poetry" 1

2 A Brief Historical Survey 19

3 The Literary Landscape 41

4 Histories of Forms 86

5 Poetry of Place 131

6 History and Historiography 161

7 Varieties of the Long Poem 186

8 Subject To, Subject Of 226

9 Anthologies and Groups 276

10 Epilogue: Beyond "British," "Irish,"
and "Poetry" 296

References 312

Index 322

"In this lively, inviting study, Alderman and Thurston
provide an invaluable introduction to the multiple varieties of
poetry to have emerged from Britain, Ireland, and the
disintegrating British Empire after World War II.
Impressively learned yet free of academic jargon, this survey
offers a lucid, evenhanded overview of competing trends in postwar
poetry, together with strikingly perceptive close readings of
individual poems. It will appeal not only to students and
teachers but to everyone with an interest in modern
poetry."

--Maud Ellman, University of Chicago

"This book is the introduction to postwar poetry that we have
needed - patient, thoughtful, deeply attuned to the long
traditions that underwrite the poetry of recent decades and to the
complex historical pressures that have given us surprising new
forms and materials along the way. Alderman and Thurston are not
interested in oversimplifying or merely summarizing, but rather in
catching the inventive range of ways in which poems make or
suggest, resist or provoke meanings, giving us the language to read
them."

--Dan Blanton, University of California, Berkeley

"Alderman and Thurston pack this volume with the
hard-earned insights of gifted readers who are also gifted
teachers. Their innovative shaping of the postwar field
distills the very best of current critical thinking for students
while their ambitious blending of historical concepts and formal
analysis sets the table afresh for more experienced readers.
Put this book into the hands of twenty-first-century college
students: they will discover how so many great, thorny poems
can make beautiful sense of the past and the present."

--Jed Esty, University of Pennsylvania

"This is the inclusive account of the recent history of British
poetry that we have been waiting for. The authors recognise the
social diversity of the poets, the complexity of social and
political history that has informed their work, and the validity of
a wide range of different aesthetic strategies. In a highly
readable style they judiciously discuss both individual poems and
the social formations that have helped poetry flourish. This book
will be immensely useful to students and teachers of modern British
poetry, while its liveliness will appeal to anyone interested in
learning more about a vital and exciting period in the history of
poetry."

--Peter Middleton