Guides and Handbooks

These texts provide background information on movements in poetry, and issues surrounding them.

Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century Poetry in English (PR601. O9 1994)
Comprehensive A-Z covers topics, movements, magazines, genres and poets since 1900. Includes a 3-page selection of anthologies. Slight bias towards English poets but Americans after 1960 are more prominent. Also a good representation of Canadian and Australian poetry.

A Companion to Twentieth Century Poetry (PR601. C56 2001)
Essays on poetry in the English language. Wide scope including discussion of work from 20 different territories including India and the Caribbean. Excellent index of poet’s names and useful bibliographies accompanying each essay, citing articles and books.

A Companion to Victorian Poetry (PR591. C66 2002)
Series of essays on major issues of Victorian poetry and culture. Poets addressed include Coleridge, Yeats, Tennyson, Browning, Wordsworth and Mangan. Useful Index of names.

Twentieth Century Literary Movements Index (Z 6514. L57. T9 1991)
A-Z listings of 500 movements and 3,000 authors. Movements featured include Imagism, Existentialism and Celtic Renaissance. Each entry includes the national origin and the main time period for each movement. Many in the field of poetry are listed.

The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (PN 1021. E5 1990)
Volume of terms related to poetic forms, genres, devices and movements. Comprehensive explanations given for each entry with a bibliography. Contains excellent sections on lesser-covered English language poetry from Canada, Australia and New Zealand.