Shakespeare and the Modern Poet

by Neil Corcoran

• ISBN13: 9780521199827
• ISBN10: 0521199824
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-04-30
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Shakespeare is a major influence on poets writing in English, but the dynamics of that influence in the twentieth century have never been as closely analysed as they are in this important study. More than an account of the ways in which Shakespeare is figured in both the poetry and the critical prose of modern poets, this book presents a provocative new view of poetic interrelationship. Focusing on W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, Neil Corcoran uncovers the relationships - combative as well as sympathetic - between these poets themselves as they are intertwined in their engagements with Shakespeare. Corcoran offers many enlightening close readings, fully alert to contemporary theoretical debates. This original study of influence and reception beautifully displays the nature of poetic influence - both of Shakespeare on the twentieth century, and among modern poets as they respond to Shakespeare.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. vi
Introduction	p. 1
Yeats's Shakespeare	p. 25
Setting a sail for shipwreck: Yeats's Shakespeare criticism	p. 27
Myself must I remake: Shakespeare in Yeats's poetry	p. 41
Eliot's Shakespeare	p. 61
That man's scope: Eliot's Shakespeare criticism	p. 63
This man's gift: Shakespeare in Eliot's poetry	p. 90
Auden's Shakespeare	p. 121
A plenum of experience: Auden's Shakespeare criticism	p. 123
The reality of the mirror: Shakespeare in Auden's poetry	p. 147
Ted Hughes's Shakespeare	p. 181
A language of the common bond	p. 183
The Shakespearean moment	p. 200
Survivor of cease: Shakespeare and Sylvia Plath in Ted Hughes's poems	p. 223
Index	p. 242
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