The Modern Poet Poetry, Academia, and Knowledge since the 1750s [Hardcover]

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. Whether considering Ossian and the Romantics, Victorian scholar-gipsies, Modernist poetries of knowledge, or contemporary poetry in Britain, Ireland, and America,The Modern Poetshows 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

This book opens intellectual borders.... Crawford comes out as a poet in the first person, breaking with 'impersonality', demanding a place in the story. This 'I' makes the book beguiling and accountable. --The Independent

A journey into personal poetic and scholarly origins that simultaneously offers a powerfully argued case for their representativeness.... A book to ponder, but also to be welcomed, argued with and enjoyed, and--above all-to be read. --Modern Language Quarterly

This is a very good book. Crawford illuminates everything he touches on, and has produced a modern literary history that pays due attention to the institutions of literature, education, scholarship and publication.... Robert Crawford...is also one of the most interesting poets writing in Britain today. --English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920

Robert Crawfordis Professor of Modern Scottish Literature at the University of St Andrews, and author of four volumes of poetry and four books of criticism. He is co-editor (with Simon Armitage) ofThe Penguin Book of Poetry from Britain and Ireland since 1945.