Canon and Canonization: British Movement Poetry

Books existing on post-1950 British Poetry are mostly in the nature of surveys. The present book, for the first time, offers the reader an idea of the kind of theory notable contemporary British poets believe in and adhere to. The book is a study in sources-of images, myths, symbols-and offers detailed analysis of selected poems. It inclines to the view that behind the facade of theories concerning poetry, which is always time-bound, real poetry is a mirror to human consciousness as it manifests itself through myth, symbol, ritual and important images of a culture or of many cultures. As such, myth, symbol, allegory, ritual, the book holds, are part of any integrated and comprehensive theory of poetry, or, for that matter, of literature. Theories of poetry, which try to approximate the language of the man on the street, fall back upon themselves as soon as the tender filaments, the nerves, arteries, and bones of the poems, become conscious of their own reality. Poetry, then, takes care of itself, leaving behind the notions of the author and the reader or the audience. The author’s voice is many voices into one and all great poetry liberates the signifieds into the collectivization of ‘we’. For this reason, the book implicitly suggests Buddhism to be a great argument in the metaphor of writing poetry.