Poetry in Theory

Poetry in Theory: An Anthology 1900-2000 brings together key critical and theoretical texts from the twentieth century which have animated debates about modern poetry. Helps readers to think critically about the nature of modern poetry, and to engage with broader questions about aesthetics, language, culture and imagination.Includes texts by poets, critics, theorists and philosophers, ranging from Ezra Pound to Jacques Derrida.Texts in translation 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.Each text is accompanied by a brief biographical and thematic introduction.A system of cross-referencing points up significant connections and disagreements between the texts.Includes a thematic index and chronology.

"Poetry has always provided the most severe test for theory, and this rich, wide-ranging anthology shows just how fruitful the encounter between the two has been. Jon Cook's excellent collection should prove a salutary lesson for all those who assume, utterly against the evidence, that literary theory has had nothing to say about the shape of the sentences and the texture of the verse." —Terry Eagleton, University of Manchester

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.