The Modern Poet
Poetry, Academia, and Knowledge Since the 1750s

Addressed to all readers of poetry, this is a book about the poet's role throughout the last three centuries. 'The Modern Poet' shows how many successive generations of poets across the English-speaking world have had to collaborate and to battle with the culture of the universities.

Addressed to all readers of poetry, this is a wide-ranging book about the poet's role throughout the last three centuries. It argues that a conception of the poets as both primitive and sophisticated emerged in the 1750s. Ever since English literary works became the focus of university studies, classroom discussion has shaped attitudes towards verse. Whether considering Ossian and the Romantics, Victorian scholar-gipsies, Modernist poetries of knowledge, or contemporary poetry in Britain, Ireland, and America, The Modern Poet shows how many successive generations of poets have needed to collaborate and to battle with academia.

Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. The Invention of the Modern Poet
2. Acts of Judgement: Making a National Body of Poetry
3. Scholar-Gipsies
4. Modernist Cybernetics and the Poetry of Knowledge
5. Men, Women, and American Classrooms
CODA: THE POET'S WORK
Index