Critical Perspectives in Modern English and American Poetry

This book presents several perspectives into Modern English and American poetry in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Modern poetry has undergone a variety of changes concerning form, technique and themes. Modernist poetry of the early twentieth century started with the appearance of the Imagists. In common with many other modernists, these poets wrote in reaction to the perceived excesses of the Victorian poetry, with its emphasis on traditional formalism and ornate diction. The breaking out of the First World War inaugurated a new trend in writing poetry that deals with the traumatic experiences and horrors of the war. Most of the poetry written in this period was anti-war poetry. The aftermath of the war was characterized by the loss of faith and hope with a severe economic crisis which is obvious in the poetry of E.A.Robinson. Ethnic and Multicultural poetry have received great importance in the second half of the twentieth century especially the Arab-Americans in the United States and how they changed from being invisible in the American community to the most visible ethnic group after the events of 9/11/2001.