Power, Plain English, and the Rise of Modern PoetryDIVIn this engaging book David Rosen offers a radically new account of Modern poetry and revises our understanding of its relation to Romanticism. British poets from Wordsworth to Auden attempted to present themselves simultaneously as persons of power and as moral voices in their communities. The modern lyric derives its characteristic complexities—psychological, ethical, formal—from the extraordinary difficulty of this effort. The low register of our language—a register of short, concrete, native words arranged in simple syntax—is deeply implicated in this story. Rosen shows how the peculiar reputation of “plain English” for truthfulness is employed by Modern poets to conceal the rift between their (probably irreconcilable) ambitions for themselves. With a deep appreciation for poetic accomplishment and a wonderful iconoclasm, Rosen sheds new light on the innovative as well as the self-deceptive aspects of Modern poetry. This book alters our understanding of the history of poetry in the English language./div |
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Contents
1 | |
15 | |
33 | |
Certain Good W B Yeats and the Language of Autobiography | 73 |
The Lost Youth of Modern Poetry T S Eliot W H Auden | 123 |
Notes | 181 |
Index | 201 |
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argument attempts Auden become begins Book Cambridge career century chapter claims common Compare consciousness continues critics culture death decade diction different discussion early effect Eliot Essays existence experience expression fact feelings finally find first follow human ideas identity idiom imagination important John kind knowledge language late later less letter lines Locke Locke’s look low register lyric mature meaning memory mind myth nature never object observed offers once origins passage past perhaps period plain English poem poet poetic poetry political present psychology question reality reason recognize relation response rhetoric Romantic seems sense signify social sounds stanza style suggest takes theory things thought tion tradition truth turn understanding University Press verse vision visionary voice Wordsworth writing written Yeats Yeats’s York