All too often, the history of poetry criticism in the 20th Century is told as a tale of two sides. While 'Lit crit' pored over the author's every line, 'Theory' stood on the shoulder of texts to gaze into the metaphysical mists.

Drawing on the key insights of both Lit crit and Theory, On Modern Poetry tries to get beyond the opposition between them, proposing instead a 'total criticism' that draws on all resources available. It combines 'analytic irony' with 'imaginative empathy' in order to generate fresh insights.

The themes discussed in the first part of the book include tradition, voice, rhyme, rhetoric, and objects, bringing in critics such as Eliot, Heidegger, Empson, Blackmur, and De Man. The second part examines texts by Tennyson, Symons, Hopkins, Larkin and Prynne. An original exploration of poetry and its criticism, On Modern Poetry is an essential guide for readers and students at all levels.

Robert Rowland Smith is a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, UK. He is the author of Derrida and Autobiography and Death-Drive: Freudian Hauntings in Literature and Art, as well as two works of popular philosophy - Breakfast with Socrates: The Philosophy of Everyday Life and Driving with Plato: the Meaning of
Life's Milestones. A frequent contributor to BBC radio and television, he is also a columnist and reviewer for the Sunday Times.