Reading Modernist Poetry

Whitworth, Michael H.

This essential guide to modernist poetry enables readers to make sense of a literary movement often regarded as difficult and intimidating.

• Provides close examinations of key poems by T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, W. B. Yeats, and others
• Considers key techniques employed to orient and disorient the reader, such as diction, rhythm, and allusion
• Explores the ideological implications of subject matter and the literary forms and structures of modernist poetry
• Places modernist poetry in relation to its Victorian and Romantic predecessors
• Encourages readers to engage with the texts and make their own interpretations, moving away from the question of what the poem says in favour of considering the effect of the poem on its reader