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The Music of Time: Poetry in the Twentieth Century
Though we might not realise it, our collective memory of the twentieth century was defined by the poets who lived and wrote in it. At every significant turning point we find them, pen in hand, fingers poised at the typewriter, ready to distil the essence of the moment, from the muddy wastes of the Western front to the vast reckoning that came with the end of empire. This is the first and only history of twentieth century poetry, by the acclaimed poet, author and academic John Burnside. Bringing together poets from times and places as diverse as Tsarist Russia, 1960's America and Ireland at the height of the Troubles, The Music of Time reveals how poets engaged with and shaped the most important issues of their times - and were in their turn affected by their context and dialogue with each other. This is a major work of scholarship, that on every page bears witness to the transformative beauty and power of poetry.
608 pages, Hardcover
Published October 3, 2019
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216 people want to read
About the author
John Burnside
96 books277 followersJohn Burnside was a Scottish writer. He was the author of nine collections of poetry and five works of fiction. Burnside achieved wide critical acclaim, winning the Whitbread Poetry Award in 2000 for The Asylum Dance which was also shortlisted for the Forward and T.S. Eliot prizes. He left Scotland in 1965, returning to settle there in 1995. In the intervening period he worked as a factory hand, a labourer, a gardener and, for ten years, as a computer systems designer. Laterly, he lived in Fife with his wife and children and taught Creative Writing, Literature and Ecology courses at the University of St. Andrews.
[Author photo © Norman McBeath]
[Author photo © Norman McBeath]
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
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May 23, 2023smooshes and completes some lovely narratives from class, some from conversation, in a way a book of joy. i loved revisiting his voice. frankly prefer to what we're beginning to call DP's 'mad scientist' approach - tho that's fun for different reasons. regard -
the real question with this book is how many burnside digressions were left on the cutting room floor. is there a room in the publisher's office dedicated to stacks of john-tale pages
I can understand uncertainty after finishing this & I think that's a product of how JB teaches. we won't say This is This
the real question with this book is how many burnside digressions were left on the cutting room floor. is there a room in the publisher's office dedicated to stacks of john-tale pages
I can understand uncertainty after finishing this & I think that's a product of how JB teaches. we won't say This is This
September 13, 2020
Framed as a memoir, The Music of Time is a great account of how poetry has shaped and influenced everything in the 20th century, from politics to revolution to philosophy to natural history.
There’s much in this book that will stay with me forever, including a long list of revolutionary poets I’ll immediately be diving into, but the thing that I’ll keep closest is the idea that poetry is not a romantic or descriptive art, but almost scientific - great poetry illuminates what’s happening in this world, and gives words to what might otherwise be unknowable.
There’s much in this book that will stay with me forever, including a long list of revolutionary poets I’ll immediately be diving into, but the thing that I’ll keep closest is the idea that poetry is not a romantic or descriptive art, but almost scientific - great poetry illuminates what’s happening in this world, and gives words to what might otherwise be unknowable.
September 7, 2024
Benefits and suffers, in equal measure, from its selling point, that being its replacement of a more thoroughgoing historical and/or technical analysis of C20 poetry with the impressionistic, I-drenched, death-haunted relfections of a credentialed member of the very Dichter und Denker class under consideration. Can forgive the hokey nothingness of “hope” as an organizing thesis, given the white-knuckled sincerity with which Burnside tries to hold at least himself to the standard throughout. It is, in other words, a glorious mess.
March 30, 2021
I had moments of real joy reading this book; it has some fascinating things to say about where we live and who we are and how poetry makes the connections between them real and possible.
Some of it seems less . . . revelatory. But Burnside is a good and happy companion, and he pointed me to some poems that I would have missed and gave me a lot to ponder in these days of stay-at-home.
Worth reading at the rate of a couple of pages a day.
Some of it seems less . . . revelatory. But Burnside is a good and happy companion, and he pointed me to some poems that I would have missed and gave me a lot to ponder in these days of stay-at-home.
Worth reading at the rate of a couple of pages a day.
February 15, 2025
This is perhaps the best collection of essays on poetry I have read thus far in my life. John Burnside is a favourite poet of mine but his ability to review, critique and evaluate is superb. I was awed (and envious!) of Burnside’s breadth of knowledge in both a literary and socio-historical sense. He renders the twentieth century in terms of its poets across the globe with an outlook that is refreshing and, in many ways, revolutionary; as he explores these poets for what made them great but also their limitations whether that be politically or personally. At no point does Burnside believe we should simply uplift these poets because they made names for themselves - instead he shows you why they were pioneers of the craft but also why we should interrogate the artist as well as the art because, ultimately, art in whatever form is a product of the society in which it was made.
January 2, 2022
An always elegant, mostly very captivating and occasionally maddening assertion of the power of 20th century poetry. I don't always agree with Burnside - in fact I think he's something of a dinosaur - but his prose is pretty much always beautiful, his analysis at the very least interesting and he's sometimes encouragingly righteous, especially in a few of the later chapters.
I'm undecided about whether he makes a completely convincing argument about the power of poetry. There are certainly circumstances in which poetry has made a sociological difference and accounting - the Spanish Civil war, the American Civil Rights movement, Seamus Heaney's Northern Ireland - but there is a general sense of preaching to the choir still here. One of the most touching aspects is his personal reflections, pithy assertions and often beautiful depictions of how the work has impacted him; but will any of that convince an indifferent public (in Western culture, anyway) of the power of poetry? I'm not sure.
But does it ultimately matter? Not in the slightest. For those of us who believe in poetry from a point of personal connection, 'The Music of Time' is a lilting and resonant reading experience, most effecting in showcasing how poets have made sense of the sociological across the globe in gorgeously different ways.
I'm undecided about whether he makes a completely convincing argument about the power of poetry. There are certainly circumstances in which poetry has made a sociological difference and accounting - the Spanish Civil war, the American Civil Rights movement, Seamus Heaney's Northern Ireland - but there is a general sense of preaching to the choir still here. One of the most touching aspects is his personal reflections, pithy assertions and often beautiful depictions of how the work has impacted him; but will any of that convince an indifferent public (in Western culture, anyway) of the power of poetry? I'm not sure.
But does it ultimately matter? Not in the slightest. For those of us who believe in poetry from a point of personal connection, 'The Music of Time' is a lilting and resonant reading experience, most effecting in showcasing how poets have made sense of the sociological across the globe in gorgeously different ways.
December 31, 2019
excellent mix of memoir with close reading of key poems - Highly recommend.
October 27, 2022
Occasionally I'll read an anthology of poetry, as long as it isn't one, of which there's so very many, that offer a way to appear to be informed about something you know nothing about. Canned thought, if you like, for the canned mind. At the end of one of these exercises in appearance you really don't know any more than before, as you've just ingested the equivalent of cultural beef jerky. You'll have a view, of sorts, but it not yours, it is not a direct reaction to the poem and could be described as simply a sterile, anonymous, "correct" reading. Ultimately the very basic act of reading it for yourself never happens. There's something possessive, arrogant and perhaps even a bit alpha about such an attitude. Culture is not simply a museum and our curator class is far too large.
That being said, this is a superb book with a clunky title and an obscure table of contents. If the title more clearly identified it as a personal memoir of a life with poetry written by a practicing poet, and the chapter headings listed the poets who are their focus, I think you'd have more people picking it up. The choice of poets doesn't hold surprises but it is definitely of a wider, more expansive nature than the usual English penned anthologies, which seem to ignore the rest of the planet. Burnside is nothing of the sort; there's a reason why Mandelstam is the first poet encountered, with his dreams of a world culture. Yes, so if you're worried about going down the Albion rabbit hole, don't, this is the book of someone who seems to have no time for such tribal preening.
Here's a few of the poets you will encounter: Montale, Rilke, Moore, Pound, Crane, Stevens, Thomas, and Heaney. There are far more poets discussed in detail, seeing as there are over twenty chapters, many working in languages other than English, and there's innumerable, smaller discussions of poets by single or several poems to flesh out ideas, sometimes formal, sometimes substantive which are the focus of the chapters. It does have a bit of an academic feel to it, but it isn't stuffy (or, the stuffiness is kept to a bare minimum), and that's a tough tone to pull of.
Finally, I'm pushing/praising this book even though I do not agree with Burnside's notions of the importance of poetry (think Shelley's "In Defence of Poetry", which he mentions often), the occasionally portentous tone, the pop culture put down insecurities, and other forms of what I consider to be stubborn remnants of the "from on high" gaze of the poet. Why can't the meaningful be light, what's with all the shadow? What's with all the seriousness? Come down off that mountain! I suppose all I'm saying is pretty much what the New York School (Ashberry etc., who is strangely absent from the book) were trying to find. A bit of joy, motion and life buried under the rhetorical gas and shadow of the past.
Burnside's own output is extraordinary, something like +30 books, ranging from verse to both fiction and nonfiction, in roughly as many years. He's clearly a craftsman of the word, his style being dense, learned, perhaps a bit too self serious but nevertheless the product of wide reading, deep experience and subtle observation. He's worth reading for both substance and style. I wish I could provide a good chunk of a chapter to give a feel for his tone, specifically the "L'Infinito" which comes quite early and is just plain brilliant, taking Leopardi's musing on the infinite and looking at what comes after, from it being massive, inscrutable and perhaps sublime, terrifyingly so, in its otherness (Montale) to the jump in the fire (fascist?) overripe romanticism of Ungaretti. I spent an entire evening with that chapter, and the three poets considered. One hour with Burnside's text, followed by several more with the primary resources. I think you've got to work with the book for it to really take off, and in that way, the demand for active reading, means you're going to come away from the experience with, perhaps, a thought or two of your own.
Finally, don't come to this if you're not already fairly familiar with 20th century verse, you'll get nowhere, as it assumes you read and are familiar with the subject matter. It is the very opposite of the sort of nowhere, gain nothing anthologies that tell you not only what to read, but how to read it and what it means. Good grief, someone open a window!
That being said, this is a superb book with a clunky title and an obscure table of contents. If the title more clearly identified it as a personal memoir of a life with poetry written by a practicing poet, and the chapter headings listed the poets who are their focus, I think you'd have more people picking it up. The choice of poets doesn't hold surprises but it is definitely of a wider, more expansive nature than the usual English penned anthologies, which seem to ignore the rest of the planet. Burnside is nothing of the sort; there's a reason why Mandelstam is the first poet encountered, with his dreams of a world culture. Yes, so if you're worried about going down the Albion rabbit hole, don't, this is the book of someone who seems to have no time for such tribal preening.
Here's a few of the poets you will encounter: Montale, Rilke, Moore, Pound, Crane, Stevens, Thomas, and Heaney. There are far more poets discussed in detail, seeing as there are over twenty chapters, many working in languages other than English, and there's innumerable, smaller discussions of poets by single or several poems to flesh out ideas, sometimes formal, sometimes substantive which are the focus of the chapters. It does have a bit of an academic feel to it, but it isn't stuffy (or, the stuffiness is kept to a bare minimum), and that's a tough tone to pull of.
Finally, I'm pushing/praising this book even though I do not agree with Burnside's notions of the importance of poetry (think Shelley's "In Defence of Poetry", which he mentions often), the occasionally portentous tone, the pop culture put down insecurities, and other forms of what I consider to be stubborn remnants of the "from on high" gaze of the poet. Why can't the meaningful be light, what's with all the shadow? What's with all the seriousness? Come down off that mountain! I suppose all I'm saying is pretty much what the New York School (Ashberry etc., who is strangely absent from the book) were trying to find. A bit of joy, motion and life buried under the rhetorical gas and shadow of the past.
Burnside's own output is extraordinary, something like +30 books, ranging from verse to both fiction and nonfiction, in roughly as many years. He's clearly a craftsman of the word, his style being dense, learned, perhaps a bit too self serious but nevertheless the product of wide reading, deep experience and subtle observation. He's worth reading for both substance and style. I wish I could provide a good chunk of a chapter to give a feel for his tone, specifically the "L'Infinito" which comes quite early and is just plain brilliant, taking Leopardi's musing on the infinite and looking at what comes after, from it being massive, inscrutable and perhaps sublime, terrifyingly so, in its otherness (Montale) to the jump in the fire (fascist?) overripe romanticism of Ungaretti. I spent an entire evening with that chapter, and the three poets considered. One hour with Burnside's text, followed by several more with the primary resources. I think you've got to work with the book for it to really take off, and in that way, the demand for active reading, means you're going to come away from the experience with, perhaps, a thought or two of your own.
Finally, don't come to this if you're not already fairly familiar with 20th century verse, you'll get nowhere, as it assumes you read and are familiar with the subject matter. It is the very opposite of the sort of nowhere, gain nothing anthologies that tell you not only what to read, but how to read it and what it means. Good grief, someone open a window!
February 7, 2025
An excellent mix of personal history and very smart criticism. Burnside covers the whole century and the literature of several languages. Right at the beginning, in his note to the reader, he tells us that modern poetry gives "an appreciation of the everyday, and of the 'irrational' ( beauty or the sense of wonder)." And then at the very end, summarizing a life of reading, and of living with poems, he concludes "The obligation we have, as observers and venerators, is to become more attentive to that fabric and so learn how to stay attuned to the music we have been given, rather than trying to create a perfect harmony that can never exist."
Along the way he does wonderful close readings of many of the major figures of the time, and some of the minor ones. He does a great reading of Heaney, for instance, and of Heaney's exploration of the homeplace. I was also gratified to see an appreciation of William Matthews reappear several times throughout this big book. He explores the way modern poets have explored love, nature, and industrialization, as well as the necessity of place and does some brilliant but never strained interpretations.
Of course, anyone will have quibbles about poets who are missing or who are looked over quickly. I felt that nearer the end, maybe in the last third of the book, he would throw a poet in just to show that he had read the work and could put it in the context. That's all fine, of course, but. it felt a little forced at times. For instance, Anne Carson gets half a sentence while he's talking about someone else. That felt rushed and unnecessary.
Still, it's a wonderful book, perhaps not an introduction to the poetry of the last century, but an overview that helps create. our different ways of reading.
Along the way he does wonderful close readings of many of the major figures of the time, and some of the minor ones. He does a great reading of Heaney, for instance, and of Heaney's exploration of the homeplace. I was also gratified to see an appreciation of William Matthews reappear several times throughout this big book. He explores the way modern poets have explored love, nature, and industrialization, as well as the necessity of place and does some brilliant but never strained interpretations.
Of course, anyone will have quibbles about poets who are missing or who are looked over quickly. I felt that nearer the end, maybe in the last third of the book, he would throw a poet in just to show that he had read the work and could put it in the context. That's all fine, of course, but. it felt a little forced at times. For instance, Anne Carson gets half a sentence while he's talking about someone else. That felt rushed and unnecessary.
Still, it's a wonderful book, perhaps not an introduction to the poetry of the last century, but an overview that helps create. our different ways of reading.
April 28, 2024
A mostly enjoyable tour of 20th C poetry in Spanish, Italian, German. There is a personal touch to the discovery of poetry as a an art to enjoy (in a bleak Scottish mining town) and the travelling experiences of the author as he contemplates each poem.
There are a couple of weak points:
- the critique of banks, loaning and the financial system is unbalanced and seems off topic. Author does not seem to understand the concept of leverage and that not all debt is bad.
- the text is too uncritical of JFK - and is it really wise to involve politics with poetry? the examples of Frost and Pound seem to suggest otherwise, but the when dealing with JFK, the author does not consistently apply their theory.
- perhaps the author is only speaking to left-leaning poetry readers…
- There appears to be some derogatory attitude towards the Irish (p 274) - later seems to conflate Irish Americans with Anglo Saxons (p 286).
Some of the texts could use a little plainer translation - a side-by-side translation might help?
The title might be a little misleading - there is not literally much music or even 'music of poetry'.
However all-in-all, it is still worth a read, for anyone who seeks exposure to mostly European modern poetry, outside of the English language.
There are a couple of weak points:
- the critique of banks, loaning and the financial system is unbalanced and seems off topic. Author does not seem to understand the concept of leverage and that not all debt is bad.
- the text is too uncritical of JFK - and is it really wise to involve politics with poetry? the examples of Frost and Pound seem to suggest otherwise, but the when dealing with JFK, the author does not consistently apply their theory.
- perhaps the author is only speaking to left-leaning poetry readers…
- There appears to be some derogatory attitude towards the Irish (p 274) - later seems to conflate Irish Americans with Anglo Saxons (p 286).
Some of the texts could use a little plainer translation - a side-by-side translation might help?
The title might be a little misleading - there is not literally much music or even 'music of poetry'.
However all-in-all, it is still worth a read, for anyone who seeks exposure to mostly European modern poetry, outside of the English language.
February 26, 2024
This author set himself an herculean task in attempting to encompass all poetry from the 20th century. I commend him for finishing this book and getting it published in such an attractive volume.
However . . . I found the book hard to access. The author's thoughts seem scattered to me, almost flowing in a stream of consciousness way. I couldn't grapple with this so I just plunged into the index and read snippets about poets in whose work I hold an interest.
My primary interest, at present, is to imbibe all I can about T. S. Eliot who I consider the primer American/English poet of the last century. This book does little to further my study of Mr. Eliot so back to my local public library it will go.
However . . . I found the book hard to access. The author's thoughts seem scattered to me, almost flowing in a stream of consciousness way. I couldn't grapple with this so I just plunged into the index and read snippets about poets in whose work I hold an interest.
My primary interest, at present, is to imbibe all I can about T. S. Eliot who I consider the primer American/English poet of the last century. This book does little to further my study of Mr. Eliot so back to my local public library it will go.
May 18, 2021
Essential reading , great !
October 29, 2024
Really interesting, full of wonderful quotes from poems and writers.
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