In the masterly cadences of T. S. Eliot's verse, the 20th century found its definitive poetic voice, an incredible «image of its accelerated grimace,» in the words of Eliot's friend and mentor, Ezra Pound. This volume is a rich collection of much of Eliot's greatest work.The title poem, The Waste Land (1922), ranks among the most influential poetic works of the century. An exploration of the psychic stages of a despairing soul cau ...
Ironically, the horrors of World War One produced a splendid flowering of British verse as young poets, many of them combatants, confronted their own morality, the death of dear friends, the loss of innocence, the failure of civilization, and the madness of war itself.This volume contains a rich selection of poems from that time by Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Isaac Rosenberg, and others known especially for their war poetry & ...
As both painter and poet, William Blake (1757–1827) was a powerful and visionary artist whose two early collections of poetry, Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, contain memorable lyric verses embodying the emerging spirit of Romanticism. The two works were published together in 1794 with the subtitle, «Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul.» The poems of Songs of Innocence describe childhood states of naturalness ...
Considered by many to be the quintessential American poet, Walt Whitman (1819-92) exerted a profound influence on all the American poets who came after him. And it was with this inspired, oceanic medley, «Song of Myself» (which in the first editions of Leaves of Grass was still nameless), that this great poet first made himself known to the world.Readers familiar with the later, more widely published versions of Leaves of Grass will find this fi ...
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861), English poet and wife of the poet Robert Browning, is perhaps best known for her remarkable series of 44 love poems Sonnets from the Portuguese. Published in 1850, they were written by Mrs. Browning to her husband during the early years of their relationship. Their obvious sincerity, gentleness, and passion and the devotion and gratitude they express have made the poems popular favorites with gen ...
The first and greatest of French literature's epics, this 11th-century tale of romance and heroism embodies all the power and majesty of its predecessors from other cultures. Its narrative framework echoes that of Greek and German myths, and it melds historic accounts from the Dark Ages of Europe with folklore from the Far East — along with the legends of the troubadours and stories from Virgil, Hebrew scriptures, and other source ...
At the Tabard Inn in Southwark, in the London of the late 1300s, a band of men and women from all walks of life have gathered to begin a pilgrimage to the shrine of Thomas à Becket at Canterbury. To relieve the tedium of the journey, the host of the inn proposes that each of the pilgrims tell a favorite story, promising that the best storyteller will be treated to a fi ne dinner on the group's return to Southwark.So begins one of t ...
"At the door on summer eveningsSat the little Hiawatha;Heard the whispering of the pine-trees,Sounds of music, words of wonder . . ."The infectious rhythm of The Song of Hiawatha has captured the ears of millions. Once drawn in, they've stayed to hear about the young brave with the magic moccasins, who talks with animals and uses his supernatural gifts to bring peace and enlightenment to his people.America's most popular nineteent ...
"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I I took the one less traveled by,And that has made all the difference."These deceptively simple lines from the title poem of this collection suggest Robert Frost at his most representative: the language is simple, clear and colloquial, yet dense with meaning and wider significance. Drawing upon everyday incidents, common situations and rural imagery, Frost fashioned poetry of great lyrical beauty and pote ...
