Scanning the Century: The Penguin Book of the Twentieth Century in Poetry

by Peter Forbes (Editor)

As this anthology demonstrates, the poetry of the last hundred years has been both a mirror and a gloss to the age. Drawing on poetry written in English and in translation, Peter Forbes's aim has been to capture this century's flavour 'with something like the tang of newsreel and the zest of popular song'. There are thirty-nine sections, which run the gamut of moods from the deadly serious to the from 'Omens' (Cavafy, Hardy, Kipling) to 'The Jazz Age' (Mayakovsky, Eliot, Langston Hughes), from 'The Holocaust' (Auden, Rumens, Milosz) to 'The Sixties' (Edwin Morgan, Bob Dylan, Lennon and McCartney), from 'Work' (Craig Raine, Wendy Cope, Simon Armitage), to 'Love and Sex' (Larkin, Fleur Adcock, Thom Gunn). W. H. Auden and Louis MacNeice are the presiding spirits of the book, but there is plenty of room too for completely different voices, whether the surrealism of Apollinaire, the beat of Allen Ginsberg, the lamentations of Paul Celan or the gentle wistfulness of John Betjeman.

Genres: Poetry, Anthologies

640 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Peter Forbes (born 1960) is a Scottish actor known for his roles in West End musicals, including Follies in 2017 to 2019, and for his audio recording work.

Reviews

[Alasdair · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this first just after the 20th century had ended and, being without the perspectives of experience and distance, hadn't appreciated just what a good job it does. It is a masterful survey of both the historical and social sweep of the century and of poetry itself, and serves as a crash course in both. Nor is it as anglocentric as it might have been - there is a substantial proportion of translated poems that introduces a broader European experience as well as African and South American; Asia is least represented but still present.

[Palmyrah · Rating 3 out of 5]

A wide-ranging anthology of the past century's poetry, including lots of poems in translation. Few of these, I'm sorry to say, work; poetry doesn't lend itself well to translation, even if the translator is himself a poet. However, there are riches enow among the English poetry on display here.

The poems are grouped under different subject headings and chronologically under each heading. The subjects are also grouped in rough chronological order. This seems to be a reasonable way to proceed, but it isn't an arrangement that lends itself either to gentle browsing or to easy reference. A titles/first lines index helps enormously in the latter connexion, though the reader is still left to guess, as best he or she can, when a particular poem was written. I, for one, find this quite frustration.

All the usual suspects are here, of course. Eliot, the Peradeniya Mafia favourite, has aged badly; in addition to sounding uptight, detached and repressed as he always did, he has acquired a distinct quality of the ridiculous. Auden and Louis MacNiece (whom Porter calls the guiding spirits of the anthology) have aged far better, especially the former. But in poetry, as in humour, it's chacun à son goût, so I'll leave you to find your own favourites.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not enough poetry, lots of events--poems without much poetry in them. Carol Ann Duffy has 5 poems, beat only by WH Auden and Louise MacNeice. These are newspaper articles.
And I won't ever read all of it, because reading bad poetry makes me write badly.
Two stars because there are a lot of poems and some of them very good; but as an anthology, one star. (A lot of poems, but, again, not enough poetry.)

[Avian Dewanto · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a poet lover. And, this book is a collection of the world class' poetry writers want to explain how was things happen in the 20th century. Of course, a poet can express all human imagination end expression. I don't think how many books will publish to describe what happen in a century. Reminds me of a book named Quran which explain the beginning of time until the end.

[Roshan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took me nearly 5 years to read this, a few poems at a time. But so worth it!

[Josephine · Rating 5 out of 5]

my all time favourite poetry anthology!

[Mills College Library]

808.8104 S2839 1999