Stefania Michelucci is a professor of English Studies at the University of Genoa, Italy. She is specializes in Modernism and the visual arts and on 20th century Anglo-American poetry and fiction. She has been a visiting scholar and has lectured all over the world, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, South Africa and Japan. Jill Franks is an English professor at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee.

• Table of ContentsAcknowledgments      Foreword by Clive Wilmer      Preface      Abbreviations      IntroductionThe Fifties      A Virtual “Movement”      Criticism and Poetry      The Canonization of the Movement      Thom Gunn and the Movement      I. “I’m an Anglo-American poet”: Profile of Thom GunnPremise      Artistic Development      II. In Search of an Ubi ConsistamBoasting Concealment: The Staging of Passion in the EarlyCollections      Between Tradition and Innovation      The Prison of the Intellect      Choosing Inertia      Action as Existential Absolute      III. A Challenge to the VoidHeroes in Motion      Shaping the Fog      IV. Surrender and RecoveryThe Phenomenology of Defeat      The Twilight of Heroism      From Senses to Sense      Contact      V. An Experiment in Artistic CollaborationPremise      Positives      VI. The Liberating SixtiesGay Pride      Rebirth      VII. The Body, Disease, and DeathThe Outsider      The Annihilation of Self      Regression to a Primal State      The Tortured Body      The Aging Body      The Dismembered Body      Thom Gunn Today      Appendix: Cole Street, San Francisco: A Conversation with Thom Gunn      Chapter Notes      Bibliography      Index

“The book, and its translation into English by Jill Franks, is undoubtedly an achievement. Readings are conscientious, accurate and well researched”—The Times Literary Supplement.