Poetry and Politics: Literature as Cultural Resistance in Ireland, England, and the USA

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between poetry and politics by examining how poets in Ireland, England, and the United States have used literature as a form of cultural resistance, challenging dominant power structures and articulating collective identities. In Ireland, W.B. Yeats’s Easter 1916 exemplifies how poetry memorialized political struggle and transformed nationalist sacrifice into cultural myth, while Seamus Heaney’s Troubles poetry reimagined the role of the poet as both witness and mediator in times of violence. In England, the Romantic tradition of Percy Shelley and William Blake positioned poetry as radical critique, where Shelley’s The Mask of Anarchy called for nonviolent resistance and Blake’s visionary verse attacked political corruption and social oppression, later echoed by W.H. Auden’s politically engaged modernism. In the United States, Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass established poetry as a democratic voice, Langston Hughes’s Harlem Renaissance works confronted racial inequality, and Allen Ginsberg’s Howl epitomized countercultural resistance in the mid-20th century. Through comparative analysis, the study argues that poetry has functioned as both an aesthetic and political practice, shaping cultural memory, mobilizing dissent, and constructing national as well as transnational identities. By situating these poets within a shared Atlantic framework, the paper highlights how literature transcends borders, demonstrating that poetry remains a vital form of cultural resistance capable of challenging oppression while sustaining visions of freedom and collective belonging.