"Poets are fascinated by literary history, above all by their own place in it."
So writes Richard Tarrant in the chapter "Ovid and ancient literary history" (Part I of "Context and History") in The Cambridge Companion to Ovid. He continues, "In that respect Ovid is like his Roman predecessors and contemporaries, only more so: his references to other writers, and to his work in relation to theirs, are more numerous than those of any other Roman poet." Tarrant later (I've got a little list) discusses Ovid's "characteristic literary-historical gesture" of lists, and catalogues of poets, in the works outside the Metamorphoses – and how he also lists is own works occasionally.
Not
knowing much of poets, and in view of Mr. Tarrant's seemingly generalized statement, I pose this question: Do modern day poets display a similar fascination with literary history?
