Poetry and class This study discusses the representation of class in poetry in English from Britain and Ireland between the fourteenth and twenty first centuries and the effect of class on the production dissemination and reception of that poetry. It looks at the factors which enable and obstruct the production of poetry such as literacy education patronage prejudice print and the various alleged revivals of poetry in Britain and the relationship between class and poetic form. Whilst this is a survey that cannot be comprehensive it offers a number of case studies of poets and poems from each period considered.