Studies In Contemporary Poets

Studies In Contemporary Poets Contains Fourteen Essays On Seven Major Twentieth Century Poets Viz. T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, Stephen Spender, Philip Larkin, Nissim Ezekiel, A.K. Ramanujan And Dom Moraes. These Poets Represent Various Significant Aspects Of Contemporary Poetic Sensibility And Their Importance Is Both Intrinsic And Historical. The Opening Three Essays Devoted To Eliot Bring Out His Singular Importance As The Maker Of The Modernist Poetry. They Examine Him In An Indian Perspective And This Is Befitting In View Of The Many Creative Appropriations Of Eliot Tried Upon By Poets In Different Indian Languages. The Essays On Auden And Spender Demonstrate How Even In Changed Circumstances When A Closer Affinity Between Art And Life Was Being Advocated The Influence Of Eliot Remained Decisive And Pervasive. The Post-Second World War English Poetry Represents A Mood Of Withdrawal Rather Than Engagement Best Manifested In The Works Of The Most Accomplished Poet Of The Period, Philip Larkin. The Three Essays Devoted To Him Cover The Post- (And For Some, The Anti-) Modernist Phase Of Contemporary British Poetry. Among Indian Poets, Nissim EzekielS Has Been A Pioneering Role In Transforming The Idiom Of Contemporary Indo-Anglian Poetry And The Three Essays On Him Explore The Significant Dimensions Of His Poetic Creativity. A.K. Ramanaujan And Dom Moraes Are The Other Two Poets Who Can Be Said To Represent The Eliot-Tradition In Indian English Poetry And They Have Been Critically Examined In Two Separate Essays. All These Essays Are Marked By A Uniformity Of Theme And Approach In That They All Deal With Different Phases Of What Has Now Been Universally Acknowledged As The Modernist Tradition Of The Twentieth Century English Poetry.