The Oxford poets of the 1930s--W. H. Auden, C. Day Lewis, Stephen Spender, and Louis MacNeice--represented the first concerted British challenge to the domination of twentieth-century poetry by the innovations of American modernists such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams. Known for their radical politics and aesthetic conservatism, the "Auden Generation" has come to loom large in our map of twentieth century literary history. Yet Auden's voluble domination of the group in its brief period of association, and Auden's sway with critics ever since, has made it difficult to hear the others on their own terms and in their own distinct voices. Here, rendered in eloquent prose by one of our most distinguished critics of modern poetry, is the first full-length study of the poetry of C. Day Lewis, a book that introduces the reader to a profoundly revealing and beautifully wrought record of his poetry against the cultural and literary ferment of this century. Albert Gelpi explores in three expansive sections the major periods of the poet's development, beginning with the emergence of Day Lewis in the thirties as the most radical of the Oxford poets. An artist who sought through poetry a way of "living in time" without traditional religious assurances, Day Lewis went further than his friends in seeking to forge a revolutionary poetry out of his commitment to Marxism. When Stalinism led to his resignation from the Communist Party, Day Lewis in the forties went on to shape a rich, fiercely perceptive poetry out of the convergence of the wartime crisis with the explosive events of his own inner life, intensified by the erotics of a decade-long affair. Returning to his Irish roots and meditating on the persistent tension between agnosticism and faith in the work of his third and final period, Day Lewis wrote some of the most moving poems in the language about mortality and dying, the limits and possibilities of human striving. Through the traumatic changes of his life C. Day Lewis came increasingly to depend on the intricacies of poetry itself as a way of living in time. His abiding belief in the psychological and moral functions of poetry impelled him in his critical writings and in his own poetic practice to delineate a modern poetics that presents an effective alternative to the elitist experimentation associated with Modernism. This vital revisionist reading of Day Lewis demonstrates that much of his best work was written after the thirties and establishes him as one of the most significant and accomplished British poets of the modern period.

Living in Time: The Poetry of C. Day Lewis

Literature & Fiction

Gelpi, Albert

History & Criticism

Oxford University Press

In this book Professor Gelpi traces the emergence of American Modernist poetry as a reaction to, and outgrowth of, the Romantic ideology of the nineteenth century. He focuses on the remarkable generation of poets who came to maturity in the years of the First World War and whose works constitute the principal body of poetic Modernism in English. This large historical argument is developed through monographic chapters on the poets which include close readings of their major poems. Comprehensive in scope and subtle in its analysis, Gelpi's book promises to be one of the major studies of American poetry for years to come.

A Coherent Splendor: The American Poetic Renaissance, 1910-1950

Cambridge University Press

In this book Professor Gelpi traces the emergence of American Modernist poetry as a reaction to, and outgrowth of, the Romantic ideology of the nineteenth century. He focuses on the remarkable generation of poets who came to maturity in the years of the First World War and whose works constitute the principal body of poetic Modernism in English. This large historical argument is developed through monographic chapters on the poets which include close readings of their major poems. Comprehensive in scope and subtle in its analysis, Gelpi's book promises to be one of the major studies of American poetry for years to come.

A Coherent Splendor: The American Poetic Renaissance, 1910–1950

In The Tenth Muse, Albert Gelpi asks the hard questions about how poetry can take on for itself the problems of shaping American identities and argues that the conditions of American life and culture have pushed our major poets into a debate between intellect and passion. Gelpi provides thorough readings of major American poets from Bradstreet and Taylor up to the modernists, often using contemporary poets (Rich, Ginsberg, Duncan) as frames for those predecessors. Originally published in 1975 in hardcover only by Harvard University Press

The Tenth Muse: The Psyche of the American Poet

The poet in America, 1650 to the present

D.C. Heath

The Letters of Robert Duncan and Denise Levertov

This volume presents the complete correspondence between two of the most important and influential American poets of the postwar period. The almost 500 letters range widely over the poetry scene and the issues that made the period so lively and productive. But what gives the exchange its special personal and literary resonance is the sense of spiritual affinity and shared conviction about the power of the visionary imagination. Duncan and Levertov explore these matters in rich detail until, under the stress of dealing with the Vietnam War in poetry, they discover deep-seated differences in the religious and ethical convictions underlying their politics and poetic stance. The issues that drew them together and those that drove them apart create a powerful personal drama with far-reaching historical and cultural significance. The editors have provided a critical Introduction, full notes, a chronology, and a glossary of names.

Bertholf, Robert J.

Essays & Correspondence

Stanford University Press

This volume presents the complete correspondence between two of the most important and influential American poets of the postwar period. The almost 500 letters range widely over the poetry scene and the issues that made the period so lively and productive. But what gives the exchange its special personal and literary resonance is the sense of spiritual affinity and shared conviction about the power of the visionary imagination. Duncan and Levertov explore these matters in rich detail until, under the stress of dealing with the Vietnam War in poetry, they discover deep-seated differences in the religious and ethical convictions underlying their politics and poetic stance. The issues that drew them together and those that drove them apart create a powerful personal drama with far-reaching historical and cultural significance. The editors have provided a critical Introduction, full notes, a chronology, and a glossary of names.

The Wild God of the World: An Anthology of Robinson Jeffers

Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962) is not only the greatest poet that the American West has produced but also a major poet of the twentieth century in the tradition of American prophetic poetry. This anthology serves as an introduction to Jeffers's work for the general reader and for students in courses on American poetry. Jeffers composed each volume of his verse around one or two long narrative or dramatic poems. The Wild God of the World follows this practice: in it, Cawdor, one of Jeffers's most powerful narratives, is surrounded by a representative selection of shorter poems. At the end of the book, the editor has provided revealing statements about Jeffers's poetry and poetics, and about his philosophy of nature and human nature.

Poetry

Albert Gelpi's American Poetry after Modernism is a study of major poets of the postwar period from Robert Lowell and Adrienne Rich through the Language poets. He argues that what distinguishes American poetry from the British tradition is, paradoxically, the lack of a tradition; as a result, each poet has to ask fundamental questions about the role of the poet and the nature of the medium, has to invent a language and form for his or her purposes. Exploring this paradox through detailed critical readings of the work of fourteen poets, Gelpi presents an original and insightful argument about late twentieth century American poetry and about the historical development of a distinctively American poetry.

American Poetry after Modernism: The Power of the Word

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Gelpi, Albert. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Gelpi, Albert

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Gelpi, Albert. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Living in Time: The Poetry of C. Day Lewis

A Coherent Splendor: The American Poetic Renaissance, 1910-1950

A Coherent Splendor: The American Poetic Renaissance, 1910–1950

The Tenth Muse: The Psyche of the American Poet

The Tenth Muse: The Psyche of the American Poet

The poet in America, 1650 to the present

The Letters of Robert Duncan and Denise Levertov

The Letters of Robert Duncan and Denise Levertov

The Wild God of the World: An Anthology of Robinson Jeffers

American Poetry after Modernism: The Power of the Word