The Oxford Book of English Verse

Book Overview

Here is a treasure-house of over seven centuries of English poetry, chosen and introduced by Christopher Ricks, whom Auden described as "exactly the kind of critic every poet dreams of finding." The Oxford Book of English Verse, created in 1900 by Arthur Quiller-Couch and selected anew in 1972 by Helen Gardner, has established itself as the foremost anthology of English poetry: ample in span, liberal in the kinds of poetry presented. This completely fresh selection brings in new poems and poets from all ages, and extends the range by another half-century, to include many twentieth-century figures not featured before--among them Philip Larkin and Samuel Beckett, Thom Gunn and Elaine Feinstein--right up to Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney.
Here, as before, are lyric (beginning with medieval song), satire, hymn, ode, sonnet, elegy, ballad, but also kinds of poetry not previously admitted: the riches of dramatic verse by Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson, Webster; great works of translation that are themselves true English poetry, such as Chapman's Homer (bringing in its happy wake Keats's 'On First Looking into Chapman's Homer'), Dryden's Juvenal, and many others; well-loved nursery rhymes, limericks, even clerihews. English poetry from all parts of the British Isles is firmly represented--Henryson and MacDiarmid, for example, now join Dunbar and Burns from Scotland; James Henry, Austin Clarke, and J. M. Synge now join Allingham and Yeats from Ireland; R. S. Thomas joins Dylan Thomas from Wales--and Edward Taylor and Anne Bradstreet, writing in America before its independence in the 1770s, are given a rightful and rewarding place. Some of the greatest long poems are here in their entirety--Wordsworth's 'Tintern Abbey', Coleridge's 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner', and Christina Rossetti's 'Goblin Market'--alongside some of the shortest, haikus, squibs, and epigrams.
Generous and wide-ranging, mixing familiar with fresh delights, this is an anthology to move and delight all who find themselves loving English verse.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0192141821
• ISBN13: 9780192141828
• Release Date: December 1999
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 752 Pages
• Weight: 2.08 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.7" x 5.8" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

So much drama over an anthology!

It is interesting that you have what looks to be two scholars of English going back and fourth about works or how this particular edition is sub par to the one made in the 1940's. Anthologies are books pretty much gathered and published for someone in a dusty old back room office of some university to keep from being totally banished into obscurity. Take it for what it is! If the anthology replaces the old school stuff with the new school.... here is an idea --- buy both! That way you have two books that cover each other, and one more anthology can't hurt now can it? It is true the older book does have more in terms of English/early poetry, and you should get it, but its also just as well to purchase this one too. I do however have a complaint, the type is very small and you almost have to use a magnifying glass to read it all, nevertheless, treat it as a nice anthology in your library!

Just What I Ordered

Every family must have The Oxford Book of English Verse. Even if you don't like poetry, let your children and grandchildren decide for themselves. Other than the Bible, the words in this book are perhaps the most influential in the American culture. I bought this book in my school years, and have now purchased it for my grandchildren. From Chaucer to T.S. Eliot, and every influential English-speaking poet in between, this book is the essential starting point, to be followed and expanded by the poetry of the non-English-speaking world. Buy this book. Keep poetry alive.

A Wonderful Collection of Great Breadth and Scope

What a wonderful treasure this book is! Certainly one could debate what has been left out and why what is included here was chosen over some other verse, but there is a lot of beauty included here. For me, it is a wonderful place to visit again and again to dip into this and that and to notice things I hadn't seen before.I think that getting focused on what isn't in this collection is to cheat yourself of the beauty that is here. Not every work is to my taste, not every work is even what I think of as good, but the range and scope of works included is really wonderful. There are many works of great beauty and more of great worth. I think it is a fine collection.One of the nice things I have found is that something I didn't at first find attractive opened up to me after repeated visits. The breadth of the music created with our language is stunning to me and has given me a great deal of pleasure.There are 822 works in this collection that are arranged chronologically from the 13th century through the mid 1990s and grouped by poet. There is an index by author, by foreign authors in translation or imitation, and an index of works by first line. This organization makes it very easy to find a work that you might be looking for or to decide where to dip into the pool depending on how you feel at the moment.

The most beautiful book I own

This is a wonderful gift, not only for others but yourself.To have a significant fraction of western poetry in one book make this a timeless acquisition. Not only are the aesthetics of the prose attractive but the binding has a tactile quality too!No matter what your mood there is a poet waiting to speak to you in this book.

Weakness?

Recent poems are hard to come by in the new OxfordBook of English Verse, but one must remember the world we live intoday. Modern works are more than likely under copyright, making them horribly expensive to reproduce in a collection. Thus, when it comes to modern works, it is more a question of funds, copyrights, and dealmaking, not of quality literature. In light of this (and combined with the fact that, most likely, Ricks had to pay for the rights to the copyrighted poems he did print out of his own pocket), the quality of the modern verse in this volume is first rate. The giants of English literature are well represented, as are those poets whom one should, but too often does not, know. Any student of English literature would probably have many of these poems at hand, but not compiled in such a manner. Likewise, those with an interest in poetry but no idea where to start, are encouraged to start with Ricks' book.