We British: the poetry of a people

Description

More than just an anthology, WE BRITISH is a history of Britain told through its poetry. Written by Britain's most celebrated political commentator for World Poetry Day. This is the story of Britain told from inside. Hundreds of thousands of Britons over many centuries have left traces of what it was like to be them - letters, drawings, text messages, emails and social network exhibitionism. But unlike texts, emails or television, poetry allows people from distant times to talk directly to us, with nobody else getting in the way: a mediaeval ploughman, a Tudor drunk or a jilted Georgian woman can look us in the eyes. What follows, then, is not a history of Britain in verse, but an epic story of what it was to be British - which means Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Northumbrian, Mercian as well as English. Combining some of the greatest of our poetry, including poems far too little-known, with explanations and brief historical essays, WE BRITISH amounts to a surprising, uplifting journey towards a new way of thinking about who we have been and who we are.;Machine generated contents note: 1. The Earliest English Poetry -- 2. Knights in Green Satin -- 3. Fanatics and Courtiers -- 4. England's Miracle -- 5. Beyond the Nymphs and Swains: Renaissance Realities -- 6. Nothing Left But Laughter? Britain's Mullahs Confront the Problem of Pleasure -- 7. The Restoration of What? Satire, Science and Cynicism, as Political Britain is Born -- 8. The Age of Reason. And Slavery, and Filth, and So On -- 9. The Revolution -- 10. Romantic Agonies -- 11. The British Age -- 12. Plush, Mush and a Handful of Titans -- 13. The Poets of More Than One War -- 14. How Modern Were the Modernists? -- 15. Lefties and Righties: Outrage and Laughter in Britain Between the Wars -- 16. Revolt Against the Metropolis: Britain in the 1940s and 50s -- 17. The Age of Larkin -- 18. Fresh Freshness -- 19. Celts, Britons and Their Friends: Modern British Poetry Furth of England -- 20. Here Comes Everybody: The British and Poetry Now.