Lives of the poets
By: Michael Schmidt.
Edition: 1st American ed.
Publisher: Knopf; Distributed by Random House
Published: 1999
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 975
Subjects: English poetry -- History and criticism.; American poetry -- History and criticism.; Poets, American -- Biography.; Poets, English -- Biography.; English-speaking countries -- Intellectual life.
Description: "Setting out to write his own homage to Samuel Johnson's legendary Lives of the English Poets of more than two hundred years ago, Michael Schmidt introduces us to the world tradition of poets who have written in English.

From the rustic rhythms of Piers Plowman to today's postmodernists, from fifteenth-century Scotland to the contemporary Caribbean, Schmidt explores the lives and creations of more than three hundred poets, discussing their best (and sometimes worst) poems, their triumphs and tragedies, their individual genius. Here is the shared universe and work of so many great poets, including Chaucer, Donne, Blake, Behn, Burns, Wordsworth, Whitman, Dickinson, Rossetti, Yeats, Stevens, Lowell, Bishop, Ginsberg, Rich and Heaney, to name but a few.

Schmidt also embraces the extraordinary poetry now emerging from Australia, New Zealand, India and other countries, and shows how these varied landscapes and cultures make their contributions to our common language.".

"Tracing the themes and achievements of each poet's work, Schmidt demonstrates with wit and erudition how poets overshadow and inspire one another across the centuries. En route, he champions some unjustly neglected voices and outlines the ways in which history and politics intervene to shape (or sometimes misshape) the poetic imagination."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [941]-958) and index.
Originally published: London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1998.