Constructions of Europe in Modern American Poetry

American poets were at the core of the modernist movement, a position largely contingent on their being in Europe. But what role has European travel played in the development of American poetry since then? Constructions of Europe in Modern American Poetry examines poems and other writings by over twenty American poets, focusing especially on the modernist moment and the postwar generation. This rich material reveals the foundational role that poets’ travels in and to Europe have had on the development of American poetry, from the ways the modernists tackled tradition to the postwar poets’ reckoning with their modernist precursors in Europe’s places. European travel lays bare anxieties about the conflation of the roles of poet and tourist and is intimately connected to issues of poetic legitimacy and belatedness.