Modernism moves to New York Jackson Pollock and Abstract Expressionism Faulkner “discovered” (1946, Nobel Prize, 1948) American film (trade agreement with post-war France) Nabokov in town (since 1940) Jazz and Popular Culture W.H. Auden reverses earlier expatriate pattern of Pound, Eliot, and Company – becomes an American citizen

Other Postwar Poets Reflect Trend Silvia Plath is the British poet from Jamaica Plain Ted Hughes is most famous for his American wife Philip Larkin is a dedicated aficionado and published critic of American jazz. The most modern element in his nostalgic poetry (besides the four-letter words) is jazz influenced

Rhyme and Meter Remain in Force Whitman’s influence (overwhelming on American poets like William Carlos Williams, Charles Olson, and Allen Ginsberg) is considerably muted in Britain. These innovative Americans for the most part ignore British post-war poets.

What’s Missing? We will not be studying the most influential British lyric poets of the period, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, but the popular culture they represent became more and more inescapable – and their work mostly rhymed, too!

W.H. Auden ( ) Son of a physician – medical themes in poems Attends private schools, then Christ Church, Oxford Close friend of Stephen Spender and Christopher Isherwood Freudian socialist as a young man, interested in Christian theology later Influenced by Hardy, Hopkins, Eliot, and Yeats Becomes an American citizen in 1946 Pulitzer Prize, 1948 Moves back to Oxford the year before his death

“In Memory of W.B. Yeats” Laden with allusions to Yeats’s life and poetry Plays upon the elegiac tradition Reflects Auden’s preference for sense over sound (this often means political sense) Asserts Auden’s own bid for Yeats’s crown

Philip Larkin ( ) Born Coventry, England – his father an admirer of Hitler Professional librarian all his life Founder of “The Movement” with Kingsley Amis, Thomas Gunn Influenced by Hardy, Yeats, and Dylan Thomas Jazz critic Obsessively concerned in his poems with the anguish of mortality The Whitson Weddings (1964) Controversial Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse (1973) High Windows (1974)

“High Windows” Its opening frank obscenity makes this poem inescapably modern Its reference to pills and diaphragms reinforce this impression – an ugly one The rest is wistful, nostalgic for oneself This emphasis on the speaker’s own pocket edition lost paradise is the essence of “confessional” verse.

Ted Hughes ( ) Born in Mytholmroyd, Yorkshire Radio mechanic in Royal Air Force B.A. at Cambridge – majoring in archaeology and anthropology –where he meets Sylvia Plath On Plath's encouragement, Hughes submits his first manuscript, The Hawk in the Rain, to The Poetry Center's First Publication book contest, which announces him as the winner. After her suicide, he writes no poetry for years, editing hers Crow (1970) Appointed Poet Laureate in 1984 The Birthday Letters (1998)

“Wind” Sophisticated slant-rhymes apt for its disorienting imagery Shifting verb tenses from stanza to stanza Lurking “confessional” content Domestic setting denies universals Abrupt images subvert the timelessness of the Imagist ideal – until the end

Sylvia Plath ( ) Born in Jamaica Plain, Mass Graduates from Smith summa cum laude, 1955; wins Fulbright scholarship to study at Cambridge, England Marries Ted Hughes On February 11, 1963, Sylvia Plath kills herself with cooking gas at the age of 30 Autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, published in 1963 Two years later Ariel, a collection of some of her last poems, published Crossing the Water and Winter Trees in 1971 The Collected Poems, 1981, edited by Ted Hughes

“Lady Lazarus” Autobiographical prophecy – she makes it come true Myths, archetypes, even the Holocaust applied to oneself Reinvents the woman poet – as Lamia? The three-line stanza is the only constant – this is the closest thing to freedom from meter and rhyme we will read from these poets But meter and rhyme are still important here – look how closely this poem resembles Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan”