Romanticism and Contemporary Poetry and Poetics

In this volume, three divergent critics—representing Romanticism, contemporary poetry, and more formal concerns, such as prosody and rhythm—present analyses of five contemporary poets viewed in relationship to several different strains of Romantic practice or theory. All three essays make creative conjectures as to what Romanticism looks like to actively producing poets right now, as well as what constitutes the most compelling contemporary poetic practices. Romantic poetry, these essays show, has in one way or another set the agenda for contemporary poetics, bequeathing multiple, and somewhat conflicting, legacies to twentieth-(and twenty-first-)century poetry. These essays show that the often disharmonious conversation in which they are engaged is Romanticism’s chief legacy to contemporary poetics.