What is the point of poetry for historians? The answer lies in this new 'history of history', which looks at the question through the prism of W. H. Auden’s Cold War history poems and of poetry and history education from the eighteenth century to the present day.

This is a book about the conflict between history and poetry – and historians and poets – in Atlantic World society from the end of the seventeenth century to the present day. Blending historiography and theory, it proceeds by asking: what is the point of poetry as far as historians are concerned? The focus is on W. H. Auden’s Cold War-era history poems, but the book also looks at other poets from the seventeenth century onwards, providing original accounts of their poetic and historical educations. An important resource for those teaching undergraduate and postgraduate courses in historiography and history and theory, Poetry for historians will also be of relevance to courses on literature in society and the history of education. General readers will relate it to Steedman’s Landscape for a Good Woman (1987) and Dust (2001), on account of its biographical and autobiographical insights into the way history operates in modern society.

IntroductionPART I: History1 Servant poets: an ode on a dishclout2 W. H. Auden and the servants3 The uses of Clio4 An education5 W. H. Auden and me6 Caesura: a worker reads history and a historian writes poetryPART II: Historiography7 Makers of history8 Homage to Clio9 The ridiculous historian’s hopesConclusionIndex

This is a book about the conflict between history and poetry – and historians and poets – in Atlantic World society from the end of the seventeenth century to the present day. Blending historiography and theory, it proceeds by asking: whatis the point of poetry as far as historians are concerned? The focus is on W. H. Auden’s Cold War-era history poems, but the book also looks at other poets from the seventeenth century onwards, providing original accounts of their poetic and historical educations. An important resource for those teaching undergraduate and postgraduate courses in historiography and history and theoryPoetry for historians will also be of relevance to courses on literature in society and the history of education. General readers will relate it to Steedman’sLandscape for a Good Woman (1987) andDust (2001), on account of its biographical and autobiographical insights into the way history operates in modern society.