American Poetry After Modernism: The Power of the Word

Albert Gelpi's American Poetry after Modernism is a study of major poets of the postwar period from Robert Lowell and Adrienne Rich through the Language poets. He argues that what distinguishes American poetry from the British tradition is, paradoxically, the lack of a tradition; as a result, each poet has to ask fundamental questions about the role of the poet and the nature of the medium, has to invent a language and form for his or her purposes. Exploring this paradox through detailed critical readings of the work of fourteen poets, Gelpi presents an original and insightful argument about late twentieth century American poetry and about the historical development of a distinctively American poetry.

Author: Albert Gelpi
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 02/21/2019
Pages: 326
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.06lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.73d
ISBN: 9781108706223

About the Author
Gelpi, Albert: - Albert Gelpi is Professor Emeritus of American Literature at Stanford University, California. His previous books include Emily Dickinson: The Mind of the Poet (1971), The Tenth Muse (Cambridge, 1991), and A Coherent Splendor (Cambridge, 1988). Gelpi has also edited the work of, and written criticism on, a wide range of poets, including Wallace Stevens, Robinson Jeffers, Adrienne Rich, Denise Levertov, Robert Duncan, and William Everson. The Letters of Robert Duncan and Denise Levertov (2003), co-edited with Robert Bertholf, won an award from the MLA as the best scholarly edition of a literary correspondence. Gelpi continues to teach in the Stanford Continuing Studies Program.