Customer Reviews

A History of Modern Poetry, Volume II: Modernism and After

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I love poetry. Books like "History of Modern Poetry: Modernism and After" fill my bookshelves. I eat this stuff up. But one thing a lot of poetry books do is mush up the sense of it all in the hope of appealing to the academics. Since most regularly published poets are professors in English departments, it works out, but it creates a great divide between the laity and the academic.

What David Perkins has done is explain the basic chronology of poets periods. This is neither an encyclopedia of terms nor an anthology of great poems. Instead, Perkins takes a period, affiliates the poets major within that period and explains their context and importance.

He keeps it simple without talking down to the reader.

Essentially, it is a collection of intelligent essays. Some are topical, like "The Postwar Period" while others are poet-specific, like "W. H. Auden."

Perkins writes clearly. It isn't trying to impress you, but he is trying to help you understand Eliot and onward.

I read it for personal growth, but it would make a solid textbook, in tandem with Perkins' other volume covering the previous eras.

I fully recommend "History of Modern Poetry: Modernism and After" by David Perkins.

Anthony Trendl

David Perkins's "History of Modern Poetry" gives the reader the essentials of the modernist movement, from its beginnings as a reaction against the outworn Romantic era to the poetry of Ashbery, Ammons, and Merrill in our own age. Brevity is a virtue here: Perkins states the essentials of a poet's life only and so escapes the common error of overinterpretation which most critics commit. The series also pays attention to minor poets who do not rank highly today and past movements in journals and anthology editing so as to provide us with a complete picture of what the past century of poetry has consisted. Highly recommended.

David Perkins's "History of Modern Poetry" gives the reader the essentials of the modernist movement, from its beginnings as a reaction against the outworn Romantic era to the poetry of Ashbery, Ammons, and Merrill in our own age. Brevity is a virtue here: Perkins states the essentials of a poet's life only and so escapes the common error of overinterpretation which most critics commit. The series also pays attention to minor poets who do not rank highly today and past movements in journals and anthology editing so as to provide us with a complete picture of what the past century of poetry has consisted. Highly recommended.

This book (the first volume) is over 600 pages. And they are 600 pages chock full of intelligent analyses and overviews of all the poetic schools in Britian and the US since the 1890s. This book is fascinating in its content and a joy to read because of Perkins' clear and humane style. It is amazing that one person can know so much. But don't let that intimidate you. This book will do wonders for your working knowledge of American and British poetry.