The Cambridge Companion to Modernist Poetry

This Companion offers the most comprehensive overview available of modernist poetry, its forms, its major authors and its contexts. The first part explores the historical and cultural contexts and sexual politics of literary modernism and the avant garde. The chapters in the second part concentrate on individual authors and movements, while the concluding part offers a comprehensive overview of the early reception and subsequent canonisation of modernist poetry. As well as insightful readings of canonical poets, the Companion features extended discussions of poets whose importance is now being increasingly recognised, such as Mina Loy, poets of the Harlem Renaissance, and postcolonial poets in the Caribbean, Africa and India. While modernist poets are often thought of as difficult, these essays will help students to understand and enjoy their experimental, playful and fascinating responses to contemporary social and cultural change and their dialogue with the arts and with each other.

Chronology; Introduction Alex Davis and Lee M. Jenkins; Part I. Contexts: 1. Modernist poetry in history David Ayers; 2. Schools, movements and manifestoes Paul Peppis; 3. The poetics of modernism Peter Nicholls; 4. Gender, sexuality and the modernist poem Christanne Miller; Part II. Authors and Alliances: 5. Pound or Eliot: whose era? Lawrence Rainey; 6. HD and revisionary mythmaking Rachel Blau DuPlessis; 7. Yeats, Ireland, modernism Anne Fogarty; 8. Modernist poetry in the British Isles Drew Milne; 9. US modernism I. Moore, Stevens and the modernist lyric Bonnie Costello; 10. US modernism II. The other tradition: Williams, Zukofsky, Olson Mark Scroggins; 11. The poetry of the Harlem Renaissance Sharon L. Jones; 12. Caliban's modernity: postcolonial poetry of Africa, South Asia, and the Caribbean Jahan Ramazani; Part III. Receptions: 13. Modernist poetry and the canon Jason Harding; Guide to further reading; Index.

This 2007 Companion offers the most comprehensive overview available of modernist poetry. While modernist poets are often thought of as difficult, these essays will help students understand and enjoy their experimental, playful and fascinating responses to contemporary social and cultural change and their dialogue with the arts and with each other.

Alex Davis is Senior Lecturer in Modern English at University College Cork.
Lee M. Jenkins is Senior Lecturer in Modern English at University College Cork.