Ritual and Experiment in Modern Poetry

W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, H.D. and David Jones, major poets of the early twentieth century, were fully involved in the historic conflict between religion and science. Jacob Korg's study illuminates the manner in which they attempted to overcome the division between the two cultures - by incorporating elements of religious ritual as well as scientific experiment in their poems. Known primarily as innovators who devised new methods of artistic expression, these poets also employed ritual, a form even more ancient than myth, side by side with their experimental ventures. Through close study of their major poems, Korg shows that the interplay between these apparently contradictory principles was a persistent theme of modern poetry that played an important part in the poetic revolution of the time.