Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry

Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry

‘This authoritative yet accessible book carries the reader deep into the rewards of modern poetry. O’Neill and Callaghan combine their own subtly informed accounts of the work of leading poets with judiciously chosen extracts from classic critical studies. Broad in scope, deep in insight, clear in historical exposition and always attentive to the verbal make-up of particular poems and imaginative worlds, Twentieth-Century British Poetry: Hardy to Mahon is at once an introduction and a revisitable archive, full of sustaining guidance.’ John Kerrigan, University of Cambridge

‘Both formally attuned and contextually alert, the author-editors have here selected passages from the best recent critics and interwoven them with their own informed and illuminating commentary, revealing both the innovation of modern poetry and its implication within a diverse range of literary traditions. Altogether, the book provides an invaluable companion to one of the great ages of poetry in English.’
Seamus Perry, Balliol College, Oxford

Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry: Hardy to Mahon offers an accessible and imaginative guide to the criticism of British and Irish poetry in the twentieth century. The editors also supply their own stimulating readings of the poetry.

Through an insightful narrative – which points up the major features of the poets and the chosen excerpts – Michael O’Neill and Madeleine Callaghan knit together contributions by major critics, including essays by a number of distinguished poet-critics such as Geoffrey Hill, Andrew Motion and Tom Paulin. Featured poets include Hardy, Yeats, Eliot, Owen, Lawrence, Auden, Dylan Thomas, Larkin, MacDiarmid, Stevie Smith, Plath, Heaney, Mahon and many others.