TWENTIETH CENTURY

ENGLISH POETRY

Third Year Course

in
English Literature

Motto

I dont need no axe

to split/up yu syntax
I dont need no hammer
to mash/up yu grammar

(John Agard, Listen Mr. Oxford Don, 1985)

Main issues

Characteristics of modern and contemporary

poetic discourse
Schools, trends, orientations. Poet-critics and
their theories
Modern poetry: J. Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, W. B.
Yeats, T. S. Eliot
Contemporary poetry: T. Hughes, T. Gunn, S.
Plath, E. Morgan
Present day developments: R. McGough, U.A.
Fanthorpe, S. Armitage, K. Clanchy, B.
Zephaniah

Minimal bibliography

Fischer, Tibor; Lawrence Norfolk (eds) (1999) New

Writing 8. An Anthology, London: Vintage
Jones, Peter (ed) (1972) Imagist Poetry, London:
Penguin
Martin, Graham; P.N. Furbank (eds) (1975)
Twentieth Century Poetry, London: OUP
Morrison, Blake (1980) English Poetry and Fiction
of the 1950s, London: Methuen
Thompson, N. S. (ed) (1998) Atlanta Review,
Spring/Summer, USA: Poetry Atlanta
Wynne-Davies, Marion (ed.) (1989) Bloomsbury
Guide to English Literature, London: Bloomsbury
Publishing Ltd.

Schools of poetry (1)

1910 Between Tradition and Innovation (E. Pound, J. Joyce,

D. H. Lawrence)
metaphysical poetry influenced by imagism and vorticism
poetry which intensifies and condenses (following Browning and
Hopkins)
the lyric form replaces the narrative poem and the novel-poem
1920s Undertones of War (S. Sassoon, W. Owen)
challenges the prevalent philosophy of language (as transparent,
reflecting reality)
self-conscious poetry, which foregrounds form over content
breaks in poetic consciousness and linguistic coherence
1930s Return to Symbolism (W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot)
the problem of poetry feeds into the problem of culture
redefines the condition of art and the artist
modernist relativity of time and perspective
politicization of writing and immersion into the daily, ugly and
banal

Schools of poetry (2)

1940s The Apocalyptics (D. Thomas, H. D., W. S. Graham)

unbridled, undisciplined
free language from the boundaries of rationality
work through rearrangements, permutations of statements
allow meaning to self deconstruct
explore the outer reaches of paranoia
disturbing meeting of mental illness and political repression
1950s The Movement (P. Larkin, D. Davie, E. Jennings)
post-war Anglo-Saxon rationalism
repulsion for grand gestures
mask of the minipoet
a no-nonsense tone
reaction against the excesses of the 1940s
parochialism and provincialism replacing eclectic internationalism

Schools of poetry (3)

1960s The Group (T. Gunn, T. Hughes, S. Plath)

striving to break the minipoet mould
a poetics of irrationality and violence
combine a sense of tradition with physical imagination
postmodernist skepticism about the possibility of language to
engage with reality
confessional writing, expressionism, internationalism
approach primal passions and taboos
1970s The Regional Schools (R. McGough, S. Heaney, P.
Muldoon, D. Mahon)
Liverpool, Newcastle, Ulster
result of establishment of small presses outside monolithic
publishing houses
experimental and avant garde work
Liverpool: a British version of American Beat poetry
Newcastle and Ulster: fought the cultural imperialism of the southeast

Schools of poetry (4)

1980s Martian Poetry (D. Levertov, R. Fainlight, C. Reid, J.

Agard)
presents everyday objects as if seen for the first time by aliens
visiting Earth
an affirmation of difference and otherness
voices of other cultural forms break out from the broken body of
Eng. Lit.
Marginalisation and the literary crisis shape opens the canon from
within poetry itself
1990s New Generation Poetry (W. Cope, C. A. Duffy, S.
Armitage)
chic, sophisticated poetry; multiverse and a plurality of voices
politicizes the problems of what constitutes a poem and of who the
poet is
questions what is British in British poetry
inner emigres (black, female or Irish) continue to feel homeless
English poetry seems to undergo a death process

Text in focus:

Wimsatt, W. K. (1965), What to say about a

poem, in Twentieth Century Poetry (1975),
ed. by G. Martin and P. N. Furbank, England:
The Open University Press, pp. 4-6