The 20th Century in Poetry

The history of the 20th century as seen through the eyes of our greatest poets, from Thomas Hardy and W.B. Yeats to Seamus Heaney and W.S. Merwin.

This impressive anthology presents over four hundred poems written during the twentieth century. Covering every major period of our cultural history―supporting their stance that no poet works in isolation from contemporary events―the editors have placed each poem within its historical context as well as the century’s overall poetic development.By organizing the poems in chronological order, readers will see these poets in a new light. Here A. E. Housman rubs shoulders with T. S. Eliot, showing that traditional forms can hold their own against the modernist orthodoxy.Including poems by Noel Coward, Rudyard Kipling, James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, Robert Frost, G. K. Chesterton, Ezra Pound, Philip Larkin, T. S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, Langston Hughes, William Carlos Williams, W. H. Auden, e. e. cummings, Dylan Thomas, Kingsley Amis, Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Frank O’Hara, Ted Hughes,Sylvia Plath, John Updike, Robert Penn Warren, and a host of others, this richly rewarding collection captures the history of the twentieth century within one monumental volume.

Michael Hulse teaches poetry at Warwick University and regularly does reading tours in England, America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and India. He is based in Warwick, England.

Simon Rae is a playwright, novelist, and broadcaster. He lives in Oxfordshire. Both Michael Hulse and Simon Rae are published poets and winners of the National Poetry Competition in England.