Featuring contributions from some of the major critics of contemporary poetry, Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry offers an accessible, imaginative, and highly stimulating body of critical work on the evolution of British and Irish poetry in the twentieth-century.

Acknowledgements viii

Introduction 1

1 Modern Poetry: Transition and Trauma 11
Thomas Hardy, Edward Thomas and Wilfred Owen

Thomas Hardy 11
Extract from British Poetry in the Age of Modernism 17
Peter Howarth

Edward Thomas 30
Extract from The Poetry of Edward Thomas 33
Andrew Motion

Wilfred Owen 37
Extract from Poetry of Mourning 41
Jahan Ramazani

2 Forms of Modernism: Things Fall Apart 57
W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot and D. H. Lawrence

W. B. Yeats 57
Extract from Our Secret Discipline 63
Helen Vendler

T. S. Eliot 71
Extract from He Do the Police in Different Voices 77
Calvin Bedient

D. H. Lawrence 83
Extract from ‘Hibiscus and Salvia Flowers’ 87
Tom Paulin

3 Poetry of the Thirties: Between Two Fires 94
W. H. Auden, Louis MacNeice and Stephen Spender

W. H. Auden 94
Extract from ‘The 1930s Poetry of W. H. Auden’ 98
Michael O’Neill

Louis MacNeice 108
Extract from Louis MacNeice 112
Peter McDonald

Stephen Spender 120
Extracts from The Ironic Harvest 123
Geoffrey Thurley

4 Poetry of the Forties: Realism and Rhetoric 129
Keith Douglas and Dylan Thomas

Keith Douglas 130
Extract from ‘I in Another Place’ 133
Geoffrey Hill

Dylan Thomas 141
Extract from The Romantic Survival 144
John Bayley

5 Post-War Poetry: Featureless Morning, Featureless Night 149
Philip Larkin and the Movement

Philip Larkin 149
Extract from Out of Reach 154
Andrew Swarbrick

The Movement 162
Extract from The Movement 166
Blake Morrison

6 Beyond the Movement: No Bloodless Myth 178
Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath and Geoffrey Hill

Ted Hughes 179
Extract from ‘Ted Hughes: The Double Voice’ 182
Margaret Dickie

Sylvia Plath 187
Extract from Sylvia Plath and the Theatre of Mourning 191
Christina Britzolakis

Geoffrey Hill 200
Extract from ‘History to the Defeated’ 203
Alan Robinson

7 Situated Sequences and Marginal Voices 214
Basil Bunting, Hugh MacDiarmid, Thomas Kinsella, Stevie Smith and Tony Harrison

Hugh MacDiarmid, Thomas Kinsella, and Basil Bunting 214
Extracts from The Modern Poetic Sequence 218
M. L. Rosenthal and Sally M. Gall

Stevie Smith 230
Extract from A History of Twentieth-Century British Women’s Poetry 232
Jane Dowson and Alice Entwistle

Tony Harrison 234
Extract from The Poetry of Tony Harrison 237
Luke Spencer

8 Northern Irish Poetry: The Poles of Our Condition 245
Seamus Heaney and Derek Mahon

Seamus Heaney 245
Extracts from The Poetry of Seamus Heaney 250
Neil Corcoran

Derek Mahon 259
Extract from Poetry in the Wars 263
Edna Longley

Afterword 267

Recommended Reading 272

Index 290

‘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.

"Michael O'Neill has assembled some truly memorable contributions to the criticism of twentieth-century poetry, all of them illuminating, some of them hard to come by in recent years, acquiring here the freshness of a renewed encounter after long absence. Some belong to the same period as the poems and shed light on a shared context."
—Edward Larrissy, Queen's University Belfast

"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/ 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

Acknowledgements Introduction 1. Modern Poetry: Transition and Trauma Thomas Hardy, Edward Thomas and Wilfred Owen 2. Forms of Modernism: Things Fall Apart W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot and D. H. Lawrence 3. Poetry of the Thirties: Between Two Fires W. H. Auden, Louis MacNeice and Stephen Spender 4. Poetry of the Forties: Realism and Rhetoric Keith Douglas and Dylan Thomas 5. Post-War Poetry: Featureless Morning, Featureless Night 6. Beyond the Movement: No Bloodless Myth Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath and Geoffrey Hill 7. Situated Sequences and Marginal Voices Basil Bunting, Hugh MacDiarmid, Thomas Kinsella, Stevie Smith and Tony Harrison 8. Northern Irish Poetry: The Poles of Our Condition Seamus Heaney and Derek Mahon Afterword Recommended Reading Index