Modernist Poetry
This poetry Collection features poetic works by the Modernists, who sparked a new literary movement during the early 20th century. Characterized by its free verse structure and departure from the ideals of Romanticism, Modernist poetry represents a shift toward experimentation with structure, voice, and form. Poets represented in this Collection include T.S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, and W.B. Yeats.
“A Prayer for my Daughter” by William Butler (W.B.) Yeats was originally published in his collection Michael Robartes and the Dancer in 1921. This book also includes one of Yeats’s most famous poems—“The Second Coming”—and was Yeats’s eighth collection of lyrical poems. “A Prayer for my daughter” was written in 1919, a year that marked the beginning of the Irish War of Independence. The war lasted until 1921 and heavily influenced Yeats. The poem’s location... Read A Prayer for My Daughter Summary
“Do not go gentle into that good night” is an iconic poem by 20th-century Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, who occupied a special place in the public imagination for his magnetic readings and the revival of Romantic themes in his poetry. This poem, which appeared in his 1952 collection In Country Sleep, remains a favorite in anthologies and popular culture for its universal content and unforgettable dual refrain. “Do not go gentle into that good night” is... Read Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night Summary
Four Quartets is a collection of four poems by T.S. Eliot. The four pieces were originally published between 1934 and 1942, during a period of time in which Eliot’s life was disrupted by the events of World War II. They were then collected into a single volume in 1943. The poems are linked loosely by theme; all of them are about the relationship between people and the divine. At the time of its publication, several of... Read Four Quartets Summary
A meditative lyric poem on the boundaries between people, “Mending Wall” was first published in 1914 in North of Boston, a collection of poetry by the American poet Robert Frost. “Mending Wall” is one of Frost’s most popular and anthologized works. It exemplifies the themes which came to define his poetry. Set in a rural American wood, its honest, colloquial tone belies a psychologically deep and ambiguous reality. The poem’s most quotable lines exhort two... Read Mending Wall Summary
English poet Alfred Noyes wrote and published “The Highwayman” in 1906 during the early period of his literary career. The poem was written during the Edwardian Period of English literature but reflects influences from the romantic period a century earlier. Told as a narrative, “The Highwayman” recounts the doomed romance between a highwayman and a landlord’s daughter, Bess, who he visits in the night. Their love is sabotaged by jealousy; the poem romanticizes Bess’s sacrifice... Read The Highwayman Summary
“The Second Coming” is an allegorical poem that W. B. Yeats penned in 1919 and published in The Dial in 1920. The poem describes a declining, violent present and an impending apocalyptic future, marked by the approach of a sphinxlike monster. The poem is often considered an allegory for the fraught times Yeats was living in—namely, the end of World War I, the midst of the Spanish flu pandemic, and the beginning of the Irish... Read The Second Coming Summary
By any measure—influence, scope, durability, reputation—T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land,” published in 1922, stands as the defining English-language poem of the 20th century. No other single poem is more widely read, more widely quoted, more widely imitated, or more widely interpreted. The poem itself—notoriously difficult to read given Eliot’s vast erudition and determination to upend all inherited assumptions about the function and form of a poem—is largely a war poem, or more precisely, a... Read The Waste Land Summary
