The Music of Time: Poetry in the Twentieth Century

A revelatory history of twentieth-century poetry by prize-winning poet and memoirist John Burnside

Poetry helps us to make sense of our world, transforming what the Russian poet Osip Mandelstam called the noise of time into a kind of music. The Music of Time is a unique history of twentieth-century poetry by one of today's most acclaimed poets, blending incandescent personal meditations with rare insights about a broad range of poets who distilled the essence of the moment, gave voice to our griefs and joys, and shaped our collective memory. John Burnside takes readers from the trenches of World War I to a prison cell in Nazi Germany, and from Rilke's grave in the Swiss Alps to Dylan Thomas's Welsh seaside. His luminous narrative is woven through with insights into the poet's creative process as well as lyrical and thought-provoking digressions on topics ranging from marriage to the Kennedy assassination.

Author: John Burnside
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 04/06/2021
Pages: 528
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.95lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.30w x 1.60d
ISBN13: 9780691218861
ISBN10: 0691218862
BISAC Categories:
- Literary Criticism | Poetry
- Literary Criticism | Modern | 20th Century

About the Author
John Burnside is a poet, novelist, and memoirist whose many books include Still Life with Feeding Snake and On Henry Miller (Princeton). He is professor of English at the University of St Andrews and a regular contributor to the London Review of Books.