“Wrong End of the Long Telescope of Time”: Contemporary British Poetry

Year 2024, Volume: 6 Issue: 1, 10 - 20, 21.11.2024

Ferhat Ordu

Abstract

Abstract: The long-term effects and traumatic outcomes of significant social and political events, such as urbanization, World War I, World War II, the use of the atomic bomb, and the conflict between England and Ireland, as well as the scientific and philosophical theories of Charles Darwin (1809–1882), Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–190), Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), and Albert Einstein (1879–1955), will be examined in this study. Poetry by authors like D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930), Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936), Wilfred Owen (1983–18), Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967), Seamus Heaney (1939–2013), and Carol Ann Duffy (1955–) will be cited in relation to certain historical anecdotes. These poets were intelligent enough to see the other side of the medallion. However, one should also examine the reason why they wrote in this manner and why it was glorified by the reader. The explanation appears to be the repeated despair transmitted by massive, phenomenal occurrences throughout the century; as a result, people gravitated toward stories of marginal individuals rather than glorified fames, power sources, and titans. Urbanization and mechanization, international wars, and the atomic bomb, which promised a better and more relaxing world followed by covert advances in science, psychology, and philosophy, all failed and led to people becoming even more pessimistic.

Keywords

D. H. Lawrence, Rudyard Kipling, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Seamus Heaney, Carol Ann Duffy, Contemporary British Poetry

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