Poetry in Theory An Anthology 1900-2000

Poetry in Theory: An Anthology 19002000 brings together key critical and theoretical texts from the twentieth century which have animated debates about modern poetry. It provides all the material necessary for readers to engage with these debates, and with broader questions about aesthetics, language, culture, and imagination. The anthology is broad in scope, embracing writings by poets, critics, literary theorists, and philosophers, ranging from Ezra Pound to Jacques Derrida. These take a variety of different forms, including manifestos, polemics, critical essays, and extracts from longer works. Texts translated from French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Russian are presented alongside the work of writers from Britain, Ireland, the United States, Africa, India, and the Caribbean. The volume is organized chronologically, with a thematic index, allowing readers to trace continuities and disruptions in poetics over the twentieth century. A general introduction by the editor sets out the uses of the book and outlines Romantic and nineteenth-century precedents for thinking about modern poetry.

Jon Cook is Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of East Anglia and a Senior Lecturer in the Department of American and English Literature. His published work includes Romanticism and Ideology (1981), William Hazlitt: Selected Writings (1998) and numerous essays on Romanticism, critical and cultural theory, and contemporary writing.