Modernist poetry refers specifically to poetry written between 1890 and 1970 in the tradition of Modernism. It is usually said to have begun with the French Symbolist movement.
Through much of the post-renaissance, poetry in the major European languages had focused on development of large scale prosodic structure, reference and ornament, in a tradition that was seen as stretching back to the works of Dante Alighieri and Petrarch. By the 19th century a large range of established forms and norms had been established in French, English, German, Italian, Spanish and Russian, and these norms were the standard against which new works were judged.
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