Publisher's Synopsis
The Cambridge Introduction to Contemporary British Poetry offers readers a detailed introduction to the rich variety of traditions and individual talents that make up British poetry since the Second World War. It combines an overview of post-war literary history with detailed readings of the major poets of the period, such as Philip Larkin, Basil Bunting, Stevie Smith, Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney. Beginning with the transition from modernism and the 1930s, it charts developing concepts of Britishness and the British poem through various groups and schools, paying careful attention to the distinctiveness of Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish writing and the shaping influence of social and political contexts. The primary focus throughout is on close readings of the most important poems of the period, and their dynamic and central contribution to twentieth-century poetry in English. This is a book that students and teachers alike will find invaluable.
