The 20th Century in Poetry

A historical timeline of more than four hundred 20th-century poems. “[A] prodigious harvest . . . an entire universe of poetry lives here” (Booklist, starred review). This groundbreaking anthology presents in chronological order over four hundred poems written in the twentieth century. The authors, both published poets themselves, give an overview of each period of history, while notes to the poems place each one in its historical context and trace the century’s poetic development. Concise biographies for each poet complete the anthology.By organizing the poems in chronological order, readers will see poets in a new light. Here A. E. Housman, for example, rubs shoulders with T. S. Eliot, showing that traditional forms can hold their own against the modernist orthodoxy. All the major events of the twentieth century are reflected in the choice of poems within these pages.