Book contents
- The Cambridge History of American Poetry
- The Cambridge History of American Poetry
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Beginnings: Poetry before 1800
- Part II A New Nation: Poetry from 1800 to 1900
- Part III Forms of Modernism, 1900–1950
- Chapter 22 The Twentieth Century Begins
- Chapter 23 Robert Frost and Tradition
- Chapter 24 T. S. Eliot
- Chapter 25 William Carlos Williams
- Chapter 26 Finding “Only Words” Mysterious
- Chapter 27 Marianne Moore and the Printed Page
- Chapter 28 The Formalist Modernism of Edna St. Vincent Millay, Helene Johnson, and Louise Bogan
- Chapter 29 The Romantic and Anti-Romantic in the Poetry of Wallace Stevens
- Chapter 30 Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, and the East Coast Projectivists
- Chapter 31 Langston Hughes and His World
- Chapter 32 The Objectivists and the Left
- Chapter 33 “All the Blessings of This Consuming Chance”
- Chapter 34 Elizabeth Bishop, Randall Jarrell, and the Lost World of Real Feeling
- Chapter 35 Writing the South
- Part IV Beyond Modernism: American Poetry, 1950–2000
- Selected Bibliographies
- Index
Chapter 28 - The Formalist Modernism of Edna St. Vincent Millay, Helene Johnson, and Louise Bogan
from Part III - Forms of Modernism, 1900–1950
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2014
Book contents
- The Cambridge History of American Poetry
- The Cambridge History of American Poetry
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Beginnings: Poetry before 1800
- Part II A New Nation: Poetry from 1800 to 1900
- Part III Forms of Modernism, 1900–1950
- Chapter 22 The Twentieth Century Begins
- Chapter 23 Robert Frost and Tradition
- Chapter 24 T. S. Eliot
- Chapter 25 William Carlos Williams
- Chapter 26 Finding “Only Words” Mysterious
- Chapter 27 Marianne Moore and the Printed Page
- Chapter 28 The Formalist Modernism of Edna St. Vincent Millay, Helene Johnson, and Louise Bogan
- Chapter 29 The Romantic and Anti-Romantic in the Poetry of Wallace Stevens
- Chapter 30 Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, and the East Coast Projectivists
- Chapter 31 Langston Hughes and His World
- Chapter 32 The Objectivists and the Left
- Chapter 33 “All the Blessings of This Consuming Chance”
- Chapter 34 Elizabeth Bishop, Randall Jarrell, and the Lost World of Real Feeling
- Chapter 35 Writing the South
- Part IV Beyond Modernism: American Poetry, 1950–2000
- Selected Bibliographies
- Index
Summary
The lyric poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay, Helene Johnson and Louise Bogan is in conversation with modernist experiments, although each of these poets emphasized different aspects of twentieth century politics and culture and, at least to some extent, aspired to reach different audiences. Millay had wide popular appeal during her career and is still read beyond the academy. Johnson has always been obscure beyond her literary circle. Bogan was better known as a critic than a poet and is now read chiefly by other writers. Millay's poetic oeuvre is remarkable for the variety of received, modified, and invented forms she employs, but she is most admired for her dexterity with the sonnet. Johnson magnifies the poem's latent tension by establishing iambic pentameter and then disturbing aural pattern. Bogan certainly resisted the strictures of her Catholic upbringing and describes her teenaged self as a radical and a Fabian.
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- The Cambridge History of American Poetry , pp. 628 - 649Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014
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