Do we want to read poetry, or just like having a few poets to talk about? The history of poetry in twentieth-century Britain and Ireland is one which ends with the assimilation of successful poets into a media culture; it is also, however, another history, one of form and authority, in which certain poets found modes and pitches of resistance to the seeming inevitabilities of their times. In this history, it is the authority of poetry (and not the media-processed poet) which is at stake in the integrity of poetic form. Serious Poetry: Form and Authority from Yeats to Hill offers a controversial reading of twentieth-century British and Irish poetry centred on six figures, all of whom are critics as well as poets: W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, Louis MacNeice, Seamus Heaney, and Geoffrey Hill. Yeats's centrality to twentieth-century poetry - and the problem many poets and critics had, or still have, with that centrality - is a major focus of the book. Serious Poetry argues that it is in the strengths, possibilities, perplexities, and certainties of the poetic form that poetry's authority in a distrustful cultural climate remains most seriously alive.
Reviews
Review from previous edition The strength of the book lies in its close readings of syntax, structure and semantic nuance. * Tears in the Fence *
an immensely valuable and rigorous book * Adam Newey, The Guardian *
In Peter McDonald's important, intelligent and provocative book, a principled attention to form yields genuine insights which elude most critics ... McDonald's reading of Hill is, like all his readings, perspicacious and revealing. * Adam Kirsch, Times Literary Supplement *



Book Information
ISBN 9780199235803
Author Peter McDonald
Format Paperback
Page Count 240
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 313g
Dimensions(mm) 215mm * 139mm * 13mm