Modern Trends in 20th
Century Poetry
Introduction
Though poets don’t write for the
convenience of theorists, and groupings are often discerned later, analysis can
still disclose themes that were powerful because so buried, i.e. not recognized
or questioned at the time. One such is the negative aspect of European poetry:
what it leaves out. The result has been a local thickening as one aspect or
another is taken up, but also an overall impoverishment of theme and language,
with poetry dividing into coterie groups that each claim to have the essential
truth.
Pride in country and community, a
wish to explore, develop and identify with the aspirations of one’s fellow
citizens, an abiding interest in the larger political and social issues of the
day and a commitment to the moral and religious qualities that distinguish man
from brute animals are all aspects of modern democratic life, but they find
scant expression in its poetry. Wordsworth’s broodings on the ineffable are
preferred to his patriotic odes, and Swinburne’s urgent rhetoric is no more
read today than William Watson’s high-minded effusions. Even the Georgians with
their innocent depictions of country life were decried by the Moderns, though
what was substituted was a good deal less real and relevant to the book-buying
public. The New Criticism ushered in by Pound and Eliot, finding in the admired
poetry of the past so much that was no longer true, declared that truth was not
to be looked for in poetry. All that mattered were the words on the page, and
the ingenious skill with which they deployed. The experience of historians was
set aside, as was indeed that of readers of historical romances, both of whom
can remain happily
