Modernism and Antimodernism at Harvard: James Laughlin’s Early Poetry

James Laughlin, the founder of New Directions Books, was also a poet whose artistic evolution ran almost precisely counter to that of the modernism he did so much to promote. Originally a juvenile imitator of Pound and Eliot, Laughlin abruptly rejected their model while studying under adamant anti-modernists at Harvard, and developed a style much closer to that of Williams or even Catullus. Ironically, even as he swerved away from their influence, Laughlin’s teachers still could only see in his poetry the taint of the high modernists. At the same time, Laughlin had begun working with and publishing the writing of nascent “Middle Generation” poets such as John Berryman and Randall Jarrell. Reading Laughlin’s work in the context of the 1950s modernist vs. anti-modernist struggle shows that Laughlin should be considered a part of the Middle Generation, rather than a belated modernist imitator and impresario.