Publisher's Synopsis
Twentieth–Century British and Irish Poetry offers an accessible and imaginative guide to the criticism of British and Irish poetry in the the twentieth century. The editors also supply their own stimulating readings of the poetry.
Through an insightful narrative – which points up the major features of the poets and the chosen excerpt Michael O′Neill and Madeleine Callaghan knit together contributions by major critics, as well as essays by a number of distinguished poet–critics, including Geoffrey Hill, Andrew Motion, and Tom Paulin. Featured poets include Hardy, Yeats, Eliot, Owen, Lawrence, Auden, Dylan Thomas, Larkin, MacDiarmid, Stevie Smith, Plath, Heaney, Mahon and many others.
An invualuable guide to the ways in which a remarkable and evolving body of poetry has been and might be interpreted, this is a unique and wide–ranging collection of important critical reflection on significant voices in the twentieth–century British and Irish poetic tradition from Thomas Hardy to Derek Mahon. A brief Afterword outlines trends in British and Itish poetry since 1980.
