Modern Poetry: Background and Techniques

A Break from Tradition Modern poetry, represented chiefly by T. S. Eliot , diverges significantly from the Romantic and Victorian traditions. Each age harbors distinct notions about poetry, particularly regarding subjects, materials, and modes. During the nineteenth century, ideas about poetry were shaped by the great Romantic poets — Wordsworth , Coleridge , Byron , Shelley , and Keats . They believed that the sublime and the pathetic were the chief nerves of all genuine poetry. Classics and Wit Spenser , Shakespeare , and Milton were revered over Dryden and Pope , who were seen as men of wit and good sense but lacked the transcendentally sublime or pathetic. During the Victorian Age , Matthew Arnold summed up these assumptions, stating: Though they may write in verse, though they may in a certain sense be masters of the art of versification, Dryden and Pope are not classics of our poetry, they are classics of our prose. He distinguished between genuine poetry, conceived and composed in the soul, and th…