American and British Verse in the Twentieth Century

American and British Verse in the Twentieth Century Synopsis

This title was first published in 2003. "Why is it that almost no one can quote more than a few words from any American or British poet since (say) Robert Lowell or Philip Larkin?" asks critic and poet Colin Falck. This volume is a critical history of 20th-century poetry as well as a study of what the author sees as the decline of that poetry during the century's last three decades. Basing his argument in the ideas of English and German romanticism, and developing further the claims of his "Myth, Truth and Literature" (1994), The author provides philosophically grounded discussions of such issues as the need for modern poetry to be a "poetry of experience," the relationship between poetry and philosophy.