Description: Guido Mazzoni tells the story of poetry's revolution in the modern age. The chief transformation was the rise of the lyric as it is now conceived: a genre in which a first-person speaker talks about itself. Mazzoni argues that modern poetry embodies the age of the individual and has wrought profound changes in the expectations of readers.
Brief description: Guido Mazzoni is Professor of Literary Theory at the Università di Siena and the author of Theory of the Novel.
Review Quotes: This is a book that many people will want to read, and a book that contemporary scholars should read. Tackling the uneven historical development of 'Western' ideas of lyric, On Modern Poetry is engaged in exactly the conversation those of us interested in the field of poetics need to have right now. I, for one, am grateful for Mazzoni's many contributions.--Virginia Jackson, author of Dickinson's Misery: A Theory of Lyric Reading