The Future of English Poetry

Freshness of language is Edmund Gosse's chief concern as he looks ahead to the next hundred years of English verse. Published as a pamphlet in June 1913, this address considers why poetry survives periods of decline and how each new generation of writers must find expressions that earlier poets have not worn out. Gosse draws on literary history and compares the pressures facing English with the possibilities he sees in other languages.

His discussion also asks which subjects belong most naturally to poetry and which are better served by prose. The Titanic and Captain Scott's expedition provide examples of public events whose emotional force, he argues, resists improvement through verse. He expects poets to turn increasingly toward personal feeling, while expressing concern that close attention to the self might crowd out shared interests. Readers interested in literary criticism can follow a particular moment's hopes and doubts about poetic change.