3.8 - Verse II

Summary

This chapter provides an overview of twentieth- and twenty-first-century explorations of poetic form, with a focus on late Imperial and early Soviet Modernism. Rebelling against nineteenth-century norms, Modernist poets sought to devise a poetic idiom more in tune with their era of rapid cultural, political, and technological change. The rich and diverse poetic output of this period did not simply reject the limits imposed by formal convention. Rather, it expanded them, experimenting with metrical forms as well as the visual and sonic shape of the poem to uncover the particular qualities of poetic language. The chapter also considers the effect of shifting social circumstances on poetry, and particularly the new forms it took as it addressed mass audiences. The final part of the chapter traces the resonance of Modernist experiments in later Soviet poetry and the continued importance attached to form in the work of contemporary poets.