Against oblivion : some lives of the twentieth-century poets

Ian Hamilton's last book, published posthumously in 2002, is a typically brilliant revisiting of the concept of Samuel Johnson's classic Lives of the English Poets , wherein Hamilton considers 45 deceased poets of the twentieth century, offering his personal estimation of what claims they will have on posterity and 'against oblivion.' Examples of each poet's verse accompany Hamilton's text, making the book both a provocative primer and a kind of critical anthology. 'The affective power of this book... lies in its understatement and its understanding of what we might care about. From a century of Manifestoes and Movements, Hamilton works as a corrective for the local and particular... his idea of poetry, of what made greatness in poetry, emerges intact from each measured sentence. His criticism always pointed you towards all that he could find that was true in a piece of writing.' Tim Adams, Observer Using The Model Of Samuel Johnson's Lives Of The Poets, This Series Of Biographical Essays Looks At 45 20th-century Poets From Hardy To Larkin, Taking In Eliot, Pound, Yeats, Lowell, Auden, And Plath Along The Way. Respresentative Poems From Each Poet Are Included. Examples Of Each Candidate's Verse Accompany Hamilton's Prose Text, So That Against Oblivion Can Be Taken As An Informal Introduction To Twentieth-century Poetry, Or As A Basis For Critical Dispute, Or As A Useful And Provocative Anthology; Three Books In One. Machine Generated Contents Note: Rudyard Kipling -- Charlotte Mew -- Robert Frost -- Edward Thomas -- Wallace Stevens -- William Carlos Williams -- D.h. Lawrence -- Ezra Pound -- Hilda Doolittle (hd) -- Marianne Moore -- Robinson Jeffers -- Rupert Brooke -- Conrad Aiken -- Edna St Vincent Millay -- Hugh Macdiarmid -- Wilfred Owen -- E.e. Cummings -- Robert Graves -- Hart Crane -- Allen Tate -- Stevie Smith -- Norman Cameron -- William Empson -- John Betjeman -- Louis Macneice -- Theodore Roethke -- Stephen Spender -- Elizabeth Bishop -- Roy Fuller -- R.s. Thomas -- Randall Jarrell -- Weldon Kees -- Henry Reed -- John Berryman -- Dylan Thomas -- Alun Lewis -- Robert Lowell -- Keith Douglas -- Philip Larkin -- Allen Ginsberg -- James Merrill -- James Wright -- Gregory Corso -- Ted Hughes -- Sylvia Plath -- Acknowledgements -- Index Of First Lines -- Index. Ian Hamilton. Considers 45 deceased poets of the twentieth century, and offers the author's personal estimation of what claims they have on posterity and against oblivion. This title features examples of each poet's verse.