The underworld in twentieth-century poetry : from Pound and Eliot to Heaney and Walcott

Resource Information

The work The underworld in twentieth-century poetry : from Pound and Eliot to Heaney and Walcott represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in University of Missouri Libraries. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

The underworld in twentieth-century poetry : from Pound and Eliot to Heaney and Walcott

Title remainder

from Pound and Eliot to Heaney and Walcott

Statement of responsibility

Michael Thurston

Creator

• Thurston, Michael, 1965-

Subject

• Criticism, interpretation, etc
• English poetry -- 20th century -- History and criticism
• American poetry -- 20th century -- History and criticism
• Voyages to the otherworld in literature
• Hell in literature

Genre

• Criticism, interpretation, etc

Language

eng

Summary

"The hero's descent into the Underworld is not only one of the oldest stories in western literature, it is also one of the most often retold. Why do so many modern poets - British and American, black and white, male and female, from the metropole and from the margins - stage Underworld descents in their work? Through a series of contextualized close readings, this study traces the cultural work performed by modern deployments of the classical narrative. While some poets engage their literary forebears to exorcise anxiety and others use Hell to sharpen their cultural critique, most recent poets, including James Merrill, Derek Walcott, Tony Harrison, and Seamus Heaney, have found the Underworld descent to be a useful framework for addressing the claims of history and politics."--Jacket

Cataloging source

DLC

Dewey number

821/.9109

Index

index present

LC call number

PR605.O85

LC item number

T49 2009

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography