Late Modernism and 'The English Intelligencer' On the Poetics of Community [Hardcover]

Despite the brevity of its run and the diminutive size of its audience,The English Intelligenceris a key publication in the history of literary modernism in the British Isles. Emerging in the mid-1960s from a dissatisfaction with the prevailing norms of 'Betjeman's England', the young writers associated with it were catalysed by the example of Donald Allen'sThe New American Poetryas they sought to establish a revitalised modernist poetics.

Late Modernism and The English Intelligencergives the first full account of the extraordinary history of this publication, bringing to light extensive new archival material to establish an authoritative contextualisation of its operation and its relationship with post-war British poetry. This material provides compelling new insights into the work of theIntelligencerpoets themselves and, more broadly, the continued presence of an international poetic modernism as a vital force in Britain in the second half of the twentieth century.

1. 'Some Sort of Breakthrough in this Dismal Land': Publishing, Community and Exchange inThe English Intelligencer
2. 'An Essential Structural Unity': Modernist Ideals inThe English Intelligencer
3. Beyond the Whole: The Breakdown of Late Modernism inThe English Intelligencer
4. From Condensare to Aporia: Modernism, Visual Arts andThe English Intelligencer
5. 'Beginning Nowhere':The English Intelligencerand the Modernist Long Poem
6. 'Being Worked Out': Social Damage in the 1970s Poetry of Barry MacSweeney
Conclusion: 'The Proper Microscope After All': ReadingThe English Intelligencer
Appendix: A Complete Contents Listing ofThe English Intelligencer