This volume introduces students to the most important figures, movements and trends in post-war British and Irish poetry.

• An historical overview and critical introduction to the poetry published in Britain and Ireland over the last half-century
• Introduces students to figures including Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney, and Andrew Motion
• Takes an integrative approach, emphasizing the complex negotiations between the British and Irish poetic traditions, and pulling together competing tendencies and positions
• Written by critics from Britain, Ireland, and the United States
• Includes suggestions for further reading and a chronology, detailing the most important writers, volumes and events

• Postwar British and Irish Poetry 6
  • Contents 8
  • Notes on Contributors 12
  • Acknowledgments 15
  • Chronology 18
  • Introduction 32
  • Chapter 1 Poetic Modernism and the Century’s Wars 42
  • Chapter 2 The Movement and the Mainstream 63
  • Chapter 3 Myth, History, and The New Poetry 82
  • Chapter 4 Region and Nation in Britain and Ireland 103
  • Chapter 5 Form and Identity in Northern Irish Poetry 123
  • Chapter 6 Poetry and Decolonization 142
  • Chapter 7 Transatlantic Currents 165
  • Chapter 8 Neo-Modernism and Avant-Garde Orientations 186
  • Chapter 9 Contemporary British Women Poets and the Lyric Subject 207