Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to American Poetry and Politics since 1900
- The Cambridge Companion to American Poetry and Politics since 1900
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 The Space of Public Memory
- Chapter 2 Poetry and Propaganda
- Chapter 3 Depression-Era Poetics and the Politics of How to Read
- Chapter 4 The Politics and Poetics of Revolution
- Chapter 5 Wallace Stevens, Stanley Burnshaw, and the Defense of Poetry in an Age of Economic Determinism
- Chapter 6 The Line of Wit
- Chapter 7 US Poets on War and Peace
- Chapter 8 Institutions of American Poetry
- Chapter 9 African American Political Poetries
- Chapter 10 Our Terribly Excluded Blue
- Chapter 11 Poetry and the Prison Industrial Complex
- Chapter 12 “Oh Say Can You See”
- Chapter 13 The Political Resonances of Hip Hop and Spoken Word
- Chapter 14 Language as Politics in Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century American Poetry
- Chapter 15 Renovating the Open Field
- Chapter 16 Transcultural Agency
- Chapter 17 Ecopoetry Now
- Chapter 18 The Politics and History of Digital Poetics
- Index
- Cambridge Companions to …
- References
Chapter 7 - US Poets on War and Peace
From the Spanish-American War to Afghanistan
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 April 2023
- The Cambridge Companion to American Poetry and Politics since 1900
- The Cambridge Companion to American Poetry and Politics since 1900
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 The Space of Public Memory
- Chapter 2 Poetry and Propaganda
- Chapter 3 Depression-Era Poetics and the Politics of How to Read
- Chapter 4 The Politics and Poetics of Revolution
- Chapter 5 Wallace Stevens, Stanley Burnshaw, and the Defense of Poetry in an Age of Economic Determinism
- Chapter 6 The Line of Wit
- Chapter 7 US Poets on War and Peace
- Chapter 8 Institutions of American Poetry
- Chapter 9 African American Political Poetries
- Chapter 10 Our Terribly Excluded Blue
- Chapter 11 Poetry and the Prison Industrial Complex
- Chapter 12 “Oh Say Can You See”
- Chapter 13 The Political Resonances of Hip Hop and Spoken Word
- Chapter 14 Language as Politics in Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century American Poetry
- Chapter 15 Renovating the Open Field
- Chapter 16 Transcultural Agency
- Chapter 17 Ecopoetry Now
- Chapter 18 The Politics and History of Digital Poetics
- Index
- Cambridge Companions to …
- References
Summary
In April 1917, Woodrow Wilson’s call for a declaration of war – “The world must be made safe for democracy” – enshrined liberal-democratic nation-building as central to the US military mission, conceivably extended to every nation on earth (Tooze 9). Such sentiments might be credited with inspiring the most voluminous outpouring of prowar poetry in American literary history. Yet under the idealistic veneer Wilson’s aim was no less than US hegemony in a world capitalist system, in which “political liberty” would promote an open global marketplace that the United States could dominate (Dayton 15). This contradiction between Wilsonian ideal and reality catalyzed, in turn, a body of trenchant antiwar poetry. Broadly speaking, this minority report has become the pattern for most American poetry of war and peace written ever since, which has sought to debunk the recurring fantasy that, in American hands, war might become an instrument of peace and liberation. Yet this largely antiwar trajectory has remained largely at the cultural margins, only under exceptional circumstances speaking for the political mainstream.
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- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023