Transatlantic Modernist Poetry: Recommended Reading

Author-specific Reading

Week 1

Presentation of module

Week 2

Winkiel, Laura. Modernism: The Basics, Chapter 1

Berman, Marshall. ‘Introduction: Modernity- Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow’ in Berman, All That is Solid Melts into Air, 15-36. Widely available online.

Williams, Raymond. ‘Metropolitan Perceptions and the Emergence of Modernism’ in Peter Brooker, Modernism/ Postmodernism

Nicholls, Peter. ‘The poetics of modernism’ in Davis, Cambridge Companion to Modernist Poetry, 51-67

Week 3

Whitman

Whitman, Walt. Song of Myself and other poems, ed. Robert Hass (2010)

Hass, Robert. ‘Introduction’ in Hass, Song of Myself (2010), 1-25.

Williams, C.K. On Whitman. 2010

Greenspan, Ezra. ‘Introduction’, The Cambridge Companion to Walt Whitman (1995), 1-6

Folsom, Ed. ‘Walt Whitman’s invention of a Democratic Poetry’ in Bendixen, Cambridge History of American Poetry, 329-59

Larson, Kerry. “Song of Myself’ in Kummings, Donald. A Companion to Walt Whitman (2006), 471-83.

Killingsworth, M. J. The Cambridge Introduction to Walt Whitman (2012)

 

Dickinson

Martin, Wendy. ‘Emily Dickinson’ in Cambridge History of American Poetry, 360-82.

Miller, Christanne. ‘Dickinson’s Structured Rhythms’ in Martha Nell Smith (ed) A Companion to Emily Dickinson, (Wiley, 2008), 391-414.

Martin, Wendy (ed). The Cambridge Introduction to Emily Dickinson (2007), 77-128.

Diehl, Joann Feit. Dickinson and the Romantic Imagination (2014)

Porter, David. Dickinson’s Modern Idiom. 1981.

 

Baudelaire

Baudelaire, Charles. ‘Parisian Scenes’ in James MacGowan (trans.) The Flowers of Evil (OUP Word’s Classics, 1993)

Baudelaire, Charles-Pierre. ‘The Painter of Modern Life’ in The Painter of Modern Life, trans. P.E. Charvet (Penguin, 2010). Also widely available online.

Culler, Jonathan. ‘Introduction’ to MacGowan, The Flowers of Evil, xiii-xxxvii.

Chambers, Ross. ‘Baudelaire’s Paris’ in Lloyd, Rosemary (ed) The Cambridge Companion to Charles Baudelaire (2005), 101-116.

Wright, Barbara. ‘Baudelaire’s poetic journey in Les Fleurs du Mal’ in Lloyd, Cambridge Companion to Baudelaire, 31-50.

Week 4

Yeats

Holderman, David. Cambridge Introduction to W.B. Yeats (2006),

Castle, Gregory. ‘Yeats, Modernism and the Irish Revival’. In A History of Modernist Poetry, 204-226.

Vassalo, Peter. ‘Yeats’ in O’Neill, Cambridge History of English Poetry, 767-86.

Longenbach, James. ‘W.B. Yeats’ in Claude Rawson (ed) The Cambridge Companion to English Poets, 457-74.

Howarth, Peter. The Cambridge Introduction to Modernist Poetry, 82-103.

Webb, Timothy. ‘Victorian to modern’, in Corcoran, Cambridge Companion to Twentieth Century Poetry, 6-19.

Eliot

Lewis, Pericles. ‘Poetry’ in The Cambridge Introduction to Modernism, 129-52.

Potter, Rachel. Modernist Literature, 15-20

Eliot, T.S. ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’ (1919) in Selected Essays (Faber, 1951)

North, Michael. ‘T.S. Eliot’ in Claude Rawson (ed), Cambridge Companion to English poets (2011), 491-507.

McIntyre, Gabrielle. Cambridge Companion to The Waste Land (2015)

Harding, Jason. New Cambridge Companion to T.S. Eliot (2017)

------------------. T.S. Eliot in Context (CUP, 2011)

Laity, Cassandra and Nancy Gish (eds) Gender, Desire and Sexuality in T.S. Eliot

Pryor, Sean. ‘Eliot’s Line’ in Pryor, Poetry, Modernism and an Imperfect World (2017), 53-89.

Chinitz, David. ‘The Waste Land’ in Bradshaw and Dettmar, Companion to Modernist Literature and Culture, 324-332.

 

Week 5

Pound

Davis, Alex and Lee Jenkins, ‘Pound and Eliot’ in Davis, A History of Modernist Poetry, 302-23

Howarth, Peter. ‘Ezra Pound’ in Howarth, Cambridge Introduction to Modernist Poetry, 33-56.

Nadel, Ira. The Cambridge Introduction to Ezra Pound, 38-62.

Beasley, Rebecca. ‘Ezra Pound’ in Chinitz, Companion to Modernist Poetry, 412-424

Hamilton, Scott. Ezra Pound and the Symbolist Inheritance (2014)

Stauder, Ellen. ‘Poetics’ in Ira Nadel (ed) Ezra Pound in Context (2010), 23-32.

Ethan Lewis, ‘Imagism’ in Nadel, Ezra Pound in Context, 274-84.

Bornstein, George. ‘Modernism’ in Nadel, Ezra Pound in Context, 366-75.

Jackson, Thomas. The Early Poetry of Ezra Pound. (2014).

 

Williams

McGowan, Christopher. ‘William Carlos Williams’ in Chinitz, Companion to Modernist Poetry, 389-401.

Hofer, Matthew, ‘Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams’ in Bendixen, Cambridge History of American Poetry, 557-82.

Perelman, Bob. ‘William Carlos Williams’ in Bercovitch, Cambridge History of American Literature, 217-238.

White, Eric B. ‘William Carlos Williams and the Local’ in, Christopher MacGowan ed. Cambridge Companion to William Carlos Williams (2016), 8-23.

Steinman, Lisa M. ‘Spring and All’ in MacGowan, Cambridge Companion to William Carlos Williams, 53-65.

 

Week 6 Reading Week

Week 7

Loy

Miller, Christanne. ‘Mina Loy’ in Chinitz, A Companion to Modernist Poetry, 380-388.

------. ‘Reading Mina Loy’ in America’ in Bendixen, Cambridge History of American Poetry, 583-602.

Crangle, Sara. ‘Mina Loy’ in Davis, A History of Modernist Poetry

Pryor, Sean. ‘Loy’s Cries’ in Pryor, Poetry, Modernism and an Imperfect World (CUP, 2017), 90-126.

Thurston, Michael. Mina Loy: Lunar Baedeker’ in Bradshaw and Dettmar, Companion to Modernist Literature and Culture, 411-421.

 

Moore

Schulze, Robyn G. ‘Marianne Moore and the Printed Page’ in A History of American Poetry , 603-27.

Steinman, Lisa M. ‘Marianne Moore and Literary Tradition’ in Gendered Modernisms, 97-116.

Wilson, Elizabeth. ‘Marianne Moore: Observations’ in Roberts, A Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry, 427-436.

Santos Irene Ramalho. ‘Marianne Moore’ in Bercovitch, Cambridge History of American Literature, 262-87.

Paul, Catherine. Marianne Moore: Observations’ in Bradshaw and Dettmar, A Companion to Modernist Literature and Culture

Week 8

Stevens

Cook, Eleanor. A Reader’s Guide to Wallace Steven (2009), 1-26; 29-86.

Cook, Eleanor. Poetry, Word-Play and Word-War in Wallace Stevens (1988).

Rehde, Robert. ‘Wallace Stevens and Harmonium’ in Serio, John N. (ed) The Cambridge Companion to Wallace Stevens (2007), 23-36.

Wallace, Rob. ‘Banjos, Blackbirds, and Blue Guitars: The Soundworld of Wallace Stevens’ in Wallace, Improvisation and the Making of American Literary Modernism (2012).

Ehrenpreis, Irvin. ‘Strange Relation: Stevens’s nonsense’ in Robert Buttel (ed) Wallace Stevens: A Celebration (1980), 219-34.

Levin, Jonathan. ‘Wallace Stevens: Harmonium’ in Bradshaw and Dettmar, Companion to Modernist Literature and Culture, 459-68.

 

Hughes

Moore, David. ‘Langston Hughes and his World’ in Cambridge History of American Poetry, 701-727.

Tracy, Stephen R. ‘Langston Hughes and Afro-American Vernacular Music’ in Tracy (ed) A Historical Guide to Langston Hughes (OUP, 2004), 98-131.

De Jongh, James. ‘The Poet Speaks of Places’ in Tracy, Historical Guide, 78-97.

Wallace, Rob. Improvisation and the Making of American Modernism, 68-101.

Irene Ramalho Santos. ‘Langston Hughes: The Color of Modernism’ in Bercovitch, Cambridge History of American Literature, 311-42.

 

Week 9

Crane

Hass, Robert Bernard. ‘Hart Crane’s Visionary Company’ in Richardson, Cambridge Companion to American Poetry / Poets?

Beach, Christopher. ‘Lyric Modernism: Wallace Stevens and Hart Crane’ in Beach, The Cambridge Introduction to Twentieth Century American Poetry

Irene Ramalho Santos, ‘Hart Crane: Tortured with History’ in The Cambridge History of American Literature, ed. Sacvan Bercovitch (CUP, 2003), 288-310.

Stalter-Pace, Sunny. ‘Hart Crane’ in Chinitz, A Companion to Modernist Poetry, 526-35.

 

Lorca

Craige, Betty. Lorca’s Poet in New York. UP Kentucky, 1977.

Harvard, Robert. ‘Lorca’s Mantic Poet in New York’, Anales, 25, 2 (2001): 439-77.

Williams, William Carlos. ‘Federico Garcia Lorca’ in The Kenyon Review 1,2 (Spring 1939): 148-58.

Williams, C.K. On Whitman, 119-30.

Pratt, Heather. ‘New York, New York: Lorca and Cendrars’, Modern Language Review, 82.3 (1987): 635-37.

 

Week 10

Auden

Smith, Stan. W.H. Auden. Liverpool UP, 1995. 1-35.

Smith, Stan. ‘W.H. Auden’ in Chinitz, A Companion to Modernist Poetry, 551-562.

Lucas, John. ‘Auden’s Politics’ in Smith, Stan (ed). Cambridge Companion to W.H. Auden (CUP, 2005), 152-65

Deane, Patrick. ‘Auden’s England’ in Smith, Cambridge Companion, 25-38.

O’Neill, Michael. ‘The 1930s Poetry of W.H. Auden’ in Corcoran, Neil (ed). The Cambridge Companion to 20^th Century English Poetry, 105-116

Mendelson, Edward. ‘W.H. Auden’ in Claude Rawson (ed) The Cambridge Companion to English Poets, 508-24.

Sharpe, Tony. W.H. Auden in Context (C.U.P., 2013)

Jarrell, Randall. On W. H. Auden (Columbia, rpt. 2005)

 

Cavafy

Cavafy, Constantin. The Collected Poems: With Parallel Greek Text, trans. Evangelos Sachperoglou et al. OUP World’s Classics, 2009.

Auden, W.H. ‘Introduction’ to Cavafy, The Complete Poems of Cavafy, trans. Rae Dalven, xv-xxiii.

Pinchin, Jane Lagoudis. ‘Cavafy’s Capital of Memory’ in Pinchin, Alexandria Still (Princeton, 1977), 1-33.

Keeley, Edmund. ‘The ‘New’ Poems of Cavafy’ in Modern Greek Writers (Princeton, 1972), 123-44.

Halim, Hana. Alexandrian Cosmopolitanism, 56-119.

Ruprecht, Louis. ‘Waterways, not Walls: Cavafy, the Cosmopolitan Poet of Blurred Boundaries’, Studies in the Literary Imagination 48.2 (Fall, 2015): 47-71.

 

General Recommended Reading

Introductions to modernism:

Winkiel, Laura. Modernism: The Basics

Berman, Marshall. All that is Solid Melts into Air (Verso, 1983)

Potter, Rachel. Modernist Literature (Edinburgh U P, 2012)

Introductions to modernist poetry:

Perloff, Marjorie. ‘The Modernist Poem’ in Sherry, Cambridge History of Modernism (2017), 326-49.

Nicholls, Peter. ‘The poetics of modernism’ in Davis, Cambridge Companion to Modernist Poetry, 51-67

Robert Hampson and Will Montgomery. ‘Innovations in Poetry’ in Brooker, Gasiorek, Davis,

Longworth and Thacker (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Modernisms (2010).

Witemeyer, Hugh. ‘Modernism and the Transatlantic Connection’ in Roberts, Neil (ed), Twentieth-Century Poetry, 8-20.

Critical Companions and Surveys:

Davis, Alex and Lee M. Jenkins (eds). A History of Modernist Poetry (2015)

Davis, Alex and Lee M. Jenkins (eds). Cambridge Companion to Modernist Poetry (2007)

Sherry, Vincent (ed). The Cambridge History of Modernism (CUP, 2017)

Bendixen Alfred and Stephen Burt (eds). The Cambridge History of American Poetry (2014)

O’Neill, Michael (ed). Cambridge History of English Poetry (2011)

Lewis, Pericles. The Cambridge Introduction to Modernism (2007)

Levenson, Michael (ed) The Cambridge Companion to Modernism

Chinitz, David and Gail MacDonald (eds). A Companion to Modernist Poetry (2014)

Bercovitch, Sacvan (ed). The Cambridge History of American Literature (2003), Vol.5.

Richardson, Mark (ed). Cambridge Companion to American Poetry (2015)

Corcoran, Neil (ed). The Cambridge Companion to 20^th Century English Poetry (2006)

Bradshaw, David and Kevin Dettmar (eds) Modernist Literature and Culture (2006)

Roberts, Neil (ed). A Companion to Twentieth Century Poetry (2003)

Whitworth, Michael H. (ed) Modernism (Blackwell, 2007)

 

Cultural Contexts

Armstrong, Tim. Modernism: A Cultural History (Polity, 2005)

Gilroy, Paul. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (Harvard UP, 1993)

Hart, Matthew. Nations of Nothing But Poetry (Oxford UP, 2010)

DuPlessis, Rachel Blau. Genders, Races and Religious Cultures in Modern American Poetry (OUP, 2000)

Tratner, Michael. 'Politics and Modernist Poetry' in A History of Modernist Poetry

Bailey, Iain. 'Conceptualising the Modernist City' in The Palgrave Handbook of Literature and the City (Palgrave, 2016), pp.733-742.

Web Resources

Poetry Foundation

The Modernism Lab at Yale University

Modernist Commons

Modern American Poetry (MAPS)