|
|
Article: Sounds and sweet airs: The Norton Anthology may be bigger, but is it any better?
- Article from:
- Harper's Magazine
- Article date:
- September 1, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Harper's Magazine Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
Discussed in this essay:
The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry, edited by Jahan Ramazani, Richard Ellman, and Robert O'Clair. W.W. Norton, 2003. 2,000 pages. $75.
For many readers today, articulating the difference between modern and contemporary poetry is like telling yams from sweet potatoes: You mean, one might ask, there's a difference? The boundaries-both chronological and stylistic--seem vague, and the problem of distinguishing one literary period from the other is aggravated by a tendency to employ the terms "modern" and "contemporary" interchangeably. This is not just a confusion among the ranks of casual dabblers in ...