Twentieth-Century American Poetry

Written by a leading authority on William Carlos Williams, this book provides a wide-ranging and stimulating guide to twentieth-century American poetry.

• 
  
• A wide-ranging and stimulating critical guide to twentieth-century American poetry.
  
• Written by a leading authority on the innovative modernist poet, William Carlos Williams.
  
• Explores the material, historical and social contexts in which twentieth-century American poetry was produced.
  
• Includes a biographical dictionary of major writers with extended entries on poets ranging from Robert Frost to Adrienne Rich.
  
• Contains a section on key texts considering major works, such as ‘The Waste Land’, ‘North & South’, ‘Howl’ and ‘Ariel’.
  
• The final section draws out key themes, such as American poetry, politics and war, and the process of anthologizing at the end of the century.

Acknowledgements.

How to use this Book.

Chronology: Significant Dates and Events.

Introduction.

1. Some Historical And Cultural Contexts Of 20th Century American Poetry:.

The Romantic Legacy and the Genteel Tradition.

Transatlantic Connections.

Tradition, and the Rise of the Universities.

Rebellion in the Fifties and Sixties: The Two Anthologies.

The Poetry of Change.

2. Writers:.

Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935).

Robert Frost (1874-1963).

Carl Sandburg (1878-1967).

Wallace Stevens (1879-1955).

William Carlos Williams (1883-1963).

Ezra Pound (1885-1972).

H.D. (1886-1961).

Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962).

Marianne Moore (1887-1972).

T.S. Eliot (1888-1965).

John Crowe Ransom (1888-1974).

Claude McKay (1889-1948).

E.E. Cummings (1894-1962).

Hart Crane (1899-1933).

Langston Hughes (1902-1967).

Louis Zukofsky (1904-1978).

Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989).

George Oppen (1908-1984).

Theodore Roethke (1908-1963).

Charles Olson (1910-1970).

Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979).

John Berryman (1914-1972).

Robert Lowell (1917-1977).

Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000).

Robert Duncan (1919-1987).

Richard Wilbur (b. 1921).

Denise Levertov (1923-1997).

James Dickey (1923-1997).

A.R. Ammons (1926-2001).

Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997).

Robert Creeley (b. 1926).

Frank O'Hara (1926-1966).

James Merrill (1926-1995).

John Ashbery (b. 1927).

Galway Kinnell (b. 1927).

W.S. Merwin (b. 1927).

Anne Sexton (1928-1974).

Adrienne Rich (b. 1929).

Gary Snyder (b. 1930).

Sylvia Plath (1932-1966).

Amiri Baraka (b. 1934).

Sonia Sanchez (b. 1934).

Audre Lorde (1934-1992).

Susan Howe (b. 1937).

Louise Gluck (b. 1943).

Jorie Graham (b. 1951).

Gary Soto (b. 1952).

Rita Dove (b. 1952).

3. Key Texts:.

Ezra Pound, ed. Des Imagistes (1914).

Robert Frost, North of Boston (1914).

Edwin Arlington Robinson, The Man Against the Sky (1916).

T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land (1922).

Claude McKay, Harlem Shadows (1922).

William Carlos Williams, Spring and All (1923).

Wallace Stevens, Harmonium (1923).

Marianne Moore, Observations (1924).

Hart Crane, The Bridge (1930).

Theodore Roethke, The Lost Son and Other Poems (1948).

Elizabeth Bishop, North & South(1946).

Ezra Pound, The Pisan Cantos (1948).

Allen Ginsberg, Howl and Other Poems (1956).

Robert Lowell, Life Studies (1959).

Donald Allen, ed. The New American Poetry (1960).

Sylvia Plath, Ariel (1965).

John Berryman, The Dream Songs (1969).

Amiri Baraka, Black Magic: Poetry 1961-1967 (1969).

Anne Sexton, Transformations (1971).

John Ashbery, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror (1976).

James Merrill The Changing Light at Sandover (1977-82).

Galway Kinnell, The Book of Nightmares (1978).

Adrienne Rich, The Dream of a Common Language (1978).

Carolyn Forche, The Country Between Us (1981).

Rita Dove, Thomas and Beulah (1986).

4. Topics:.

20th Century American Poetry and the other Arts.

Continuities and Nationality in 20th Century American Poetry.

American Poetry and a Century of Wars.

The 20th Century American Long Poem.

Anthologies: Polemical and Historical.

Guide to Further Reading.

Index

"[A] useful reference book, especially for sudents and teachers. [...It is] cogent and clear, sound and well-informed." The Virginia Quarterly Review

"The year's most substantial and accessible reference volume." American Literary Scholarship

Christopher MacGowan is Professor of Literature at the College of William and Mary. He has published extensively on twentieth-century American poetry but is best known as the acclaimed editor of the works of William Carlos Williams. Written by a leading authority on William Carlos Williams, this book provides a wide-ranging and stimulating guide to twentieth-century American poetry.

The guide is designed to help students familiarise themselves with this period in literature and features:

• 
  
• An exploration of the material, historical and social contexts in which twentieth-century poetry was produced, covering literary centers, little magazines, the Harlem Renaissance, sixties counterculture, and multiculturalism, among other issues.
  
• A biographical dictionary of major writers with extended entries on poets ranging from Robert Frost and Langston Hughes to Adrienne Rich and Rita Dove. Both poets who had an impact on the development of poetry during the twentieth century and prominent contemporary poets are represented.
  
• A section on key texts considering major works, such as The Waste Land, North & South and Ariel.

A final section drawing out pertinent themes, such as poetry and politics, the relation of poetry to other arts, and the process of anthologizing at the end of the century.