No More Learning

A cycle of romantic stories suggested by the Canterbury tales. The corner stones are the Greek and the Northern epic cycles, the two greatest bodies of imaginative narration which the world has produced. The stories are told by Greeks, and by Norsemen of the later Middle Ages in the form in which they would then have been imagined. —/. W. Mackail.
88
The life and death of Jason. Longmans, 1909.
There are few books in prose or verse, of fiction or anything else, so easy to read with enjoyment and rapidity. . . . Page after page slips by as the reader follows the heroes on their quest for the Golden Fleece and through all the wild adventures of their return as easily as if one were pacing down a long gallery hung with tapestries telling the whole story. —Alfred Noyes.
89
One of the greatest epic stories of the world told in a magnificent chant. It is not an archaic story as Morris tells it ; for it deals with elemental things and "only the mightier movement sounds and passes, only winds and rivers, life and death. " —Alfred Noyes.
90
Newbolt, Sir Henry. Poems new and old. Scribner, 1913.
Mr. Newbolt is equipped with most of the qualities that go to the making of the poet. He has an eagerness for life, pity, delight in clean lines and rich color, a good, ringing, if not very subtle, musical sense, and an instinct for words. —Nation (L).
The story of Sigurd the Volsung and the fall of the
Nibelungs. Longmans, 1904.
91 Nibelungenlied.
The lay of the Nibelung men; tr. by Ar thur S. Way. Cambridge, 1911.
It tells of Siegfried, of the dragon he killed and the hoard of gold he got, of how he won the fair Kriemhild and helped Gunther, her brother, to win Brunhild the warrior-queen. — The winged horse.
92
The Nibelungenlied ; tr. with an introductory sketch and notes by Daniel Bussier Shumway. Houghton, 1909.
93
original by George Henry Needier. Holt, 1904.
tr. into English rhymed verse in the metre of the
20 POETRY AND POETS 94
The story of Sigurd the Volsung and the fall of the Nibelungs, by William Morris. Longmans, 1904.
95
Noyes, Alfred. Collected poems. 3v. Stokes, 1913.
His poetry smacks of the earth and the vigorous life of men as Chaucer's does; he has spontaneity, a richness and variety of music; he has imagination and a rare narrative power and fine qualities of humor and emotion. —Bookman.
96
Petrarch. Sonnets, triumphs and other poems ; tr. by various hands. Bell, 1901.
[He] took the ideas and images which were current in the love lan guage of the time and drenched them in the music of his own passionate sincerity. He therefore, warmer than Dante, though not as for biddingly wise less aloof, though not less lofty, more lovable, more accessible, more human in his strength and weakness. We admire Dante. We adore Petrarch. — The winged horse.
97
Pindar. Extant odes; tr. with an introd. by Ernest Myers.
Macmillan, 1874.
Everything in Pindar which really necessary for us—love of the gods, of country, and of home, heroism, disdain of death or mean ness, activity of mind and of body. — C. L. Moore.
98
99
Poe, Edgar Allan. Poems introd. and notes by E. C. Sted-
man and G. E. Woodberry. Scribner, 1895.
Neither Poe nor Whitman can be accepted as wholly satisfactory poet but in these men there that vital essence which criticism can never explain, but must accept, or become dusty signpost pointing along forsaken highways. — Athenaeum.
100
Pope, Alexander. Poetical works ed. with notes and mem
oir by A. W. Ward. Macmillan, 1869.
As truly as Shakespeare the poet of man as God made him, so truly Pope the poet of society, the delineator of manners. Measured by any high standard of imagination he will be found wanting; tried by any test of wit he unrivalled. —James Russell Lowell.
101
Pound, Ezra. Personae; collected poems. Boni, 1927.
He has done most of living men to incite new impulses in poetry. . The best man writing poetry today. — Carl Sandburg.
The golden porch; book of Greek fairy tales [from Pindar] by W. M. L. Hutchinson, new ed. Longmans, 1925.
. .
is
is
is
;
a
;
is
;
a
is
a
a
is
;
is,
102
104
Robinson, Edwin Arlington.
Macmillan, 1929.
Collected poems. new ed.
THE CHOSEN POETS : TEXTS 21
Pyle, Howard. [Histories relating to the life and to the king
ship of Arthur, King of England. ] 4v. Scribner, 1903-10.
1. The story of King Arthur and his knights. 2. The story of the champions of the Round Table. 3. The story of Launcelot and his companions. 4. The story of the Grail and the passing of Arthur. The whole is "a great work which he has worthily accomplished. " His version of the knightly stories is beautifully simple in its art, studied anew from the old romantic sources, told with some amplifications but always with restraint and with a fine feeling for the dignity of the material. — Chicago Evening Post.
103
Quiller-Couch, Sir Arthur. Poems. Oxford, 1929.
The essential qualities of these poems are melody, picturesqueness and ideal tenderness. —Booklist.
His music is always perfectly clear in its modulation, simple in its accent and yet is full always of delightful surprises. His preoccupation
. . . He sees man beset by his own character, which
Roland, Chanson de. The song of Roland; tr. into English verse by Leonard Bacon. Yale, 1914.
is the spirit of man.
is fate. . . . His is rather a tragic world, generally a deeply tragic world. —John Drinkwater.
105
106
Chatto, 1924.
newly tr. with an introd. by Jessie Crosland.
This "Song of Roland" is the greatest of the "Chansons de Geste" celebrating the heroic achievements of the legendary Charlemagne and his Paladins of France.
107
Rossetti, Christina Georgina. Poetical works. Macmillan, 1904.
One of the most perfect poets of the age. —Edmund Gosse.
She has a faultless sense of rhythm, a delicate ear for the modulation of verse, an endless variety of metre and economy of phrase. She is past master of the short song. —E. B. Reed, condensed.
108
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel. Poems and translations,
1870. Oxford, 1913.
Color, romance, mystery, subtlety and a superlative turn for style
inform his work whether as poet or painter, and he was, without doubt, the greatest of all poetical translators of poetry. —Andrew Lang.
1850-
22 POETRY AND POETS
109
Russell, George William ("A. E. "). Collected poems. 2d ed. Macmillan, 1926.
In "A. E. " we have a poet who walks, as surely as Blake walked, in a world whose gates are opened wide but which is yet all but incompre hensible save to the few. . . . "A. E. " in all his vestments of iridescent colors and jewels has his great moments, but the poet reveals himself most clearly in the simpler garb. —Athenaeum.
110 Sagas.
Ill
Saga of Grettir the Strong; a story of the eleventh century; tr. by George Ainslie Wright. (Everyman) Dent,
1913. 112
The sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald the Tyrant (Harald Haardraada). Williams and Norgate, 1911.
113
Stories and ballads of the far past ; tr. from the Norse with introd. and notes by N. Kershaw. Cambridge, 1921.
This is the great story of the north, which should be to all our race what the tale of Troy was to the Greeks —to all our race first, and after wards when change of the world has made our race nothing but a name of what has been —a story, too—then should it be to those who come after us no less than the tale of Troy has been to us. —Preface to Story of the Volsungs.
114
Sandburg, Carl. Selected poems ; ed. by Rebecca West. Har- court, 1926.
One feels in all these poems a true and deep emotion of love as the central controlling motive —love of the prairie country, the prairie towns and city and the people who struggle through toilsome lives there. It is this which gives richness to Sandburg's music. —Harriet Monroe.
The Greeks used to say that Homer was the greatest of men who made poetry and Sappho the greatest of women. . . . Her poems were lyrics. The few we have of them show great power and feeling. —The winged horse.
The story of the Volsungs and Niblungs, with certain songs from the Elder Edda; tr. by Eirik Magnusson and William Morris. Scott, 1888.
115 Sappho.
The fragments of the lyrical poems of Sappho; ed. by Edgar Lobel. Oxford, 1927.
116
THE CHOSEN POETS : TEXTS 23
Scott, Sir Walter. Poetical works; ed. by F. T. Palgrave.
Scott can never die till men grow up into manhood without ever having been boys. He came with poems of which the music seemed to gallop like thundering hoofs and ringing bridles of a rushing, border troop. — Andrew Lang.
117
Shakespeare, William. The Oxford Shakespeare; ed. by
W. J. Craig. Oxford, 1905.
A scholarly text based on the early quartos and first folio, very well printed. Perhaps the most attractive of the single-volume editions.
118
Works ; ed. by W. G. Clark and W. A. Wright.
ed. ) Macmillan, 1891.
Macmillan, 1866.
(Globe ed. )
He was the last minstrel. . . . For my part I hope and think that
Today there is no sign that his fame will lessen. His marvellous
phrases are part of everyday English speech, his plays help us to know and judge life, his men and women dwell with us as people of our own time. —The winged horse.
119
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. Poetical works; ed. by Edward
Dowden. (Globe ed. ) Macmillan, 1890.
The restless spirit that would not be caged himself and tried to sing the world into a love of freedom. Through the beauty of his poetry Shelley planted in the hearts of men a bright restlessness that still fires youth urging it to some higher and purer endeavor. —The winged horse.
120 Sophocles.
Jebb.
The seven dramas that remain give us specimens of grace and pathos that have no equal. . . . Under his guidance the Athenian stage en nobled life with a series of touching and loving figures. —A. J. Grant.
Tragedies; tr. into English prose by Sir R. C. Cambridge, 1904.
121
Spenser, Edmund. Works; ed. by R. Morris.
Macmillan, 1895.
(Globe ed. )
The two great gifts that Spenser brought to English poetry might be summarized as a sensuous conception of beauty and a personal con ception of poetry. —Herbert Read.
122
Stephens, James. Collected poems. Macmillan, 1926.
Nobody has ever written simpler poetry. . . . A bird's song, the cry of a snared rabbit and the vital, overwhelming desire to release the crooked windings of goat's path on the side of hill—these and such
(Globe
a
a
it,
24 POETRY AND POETS
as these are his themes. . . . He is an elf among the modern poets. — Edward Davison.
123
Stevenson, Robert Louis. Complete poems. Scribner, 1923.
They are quite unprofessional, written not for fame and scarcely for art, but rather for the sake of love and friendship. So they are full of his individuality . . . they are pure expressions of his very self, fragments of autobiography which no future chronicler of his life should disregard. — Cosmo Monkhouse.
124
Swinburne, Algernon
Charles. Selections from Swin burne; ed. by W. O. Raymond. Harcourt, 1925.
He is a great lyric and elegiac poet, a fountain of fiery verse and he has stamped forever with his imperial genius some of the universal themes of human feeling, love and death, childhood and liberty, sunrise and the sea. —John Bailey.
125
Ten Greek plays; tr. by Gilbert Murray and others, with an introd. by Lane Cooper. Oxford, 1930.
The first collection in one volume of the principal dramas of Soph ocles, Aeschylus, Euripides and Aristophanes.
126
Tennyson, Alfred, Lord. Works; with notes by the author; ed. by Hallam, Lord Tennyson. (Globe ed. ) Macmillan, 1896.
In magical felicity of expression, meaning, music, picture, melting into one, he is with the most perfect poets of the world. In the coinage of phrases and lines which become the currency of common speech, he ranks in English after Shakespeare and Pope. — C. L. Moore.
127
Theocritus, Bion and Moschus ; rendered into English prose,
with an introductory essay by A. Lang. Macmillan, 1901. 128
tr. into English verse by Arthur S. Way. Cambridge, 1913.
The last of all the perfect voices of Hellas: after him no man saw life with eyes so steady and so mirthful. —Andrew Lang.
129
Thompson, Francis. Selected poems; with biographical note by Wilfrid Meynell. Lane, 1908.
A true poet, one of a small band. —George Meredith.
130
THE CHOSEN POETS : TEXTS 25
Troubadour poets; selections from eight troubadours; tr.
from the Provencal, with introd. and notes by Barbara
Smythe. Oxford, 1925.
Poets writing in Provengal began to make songs of war and spring
. . . It was a new poetry they made, lovelier than any of and love. —
the Northern alliterative poems. The winged horse. 131
Virgil.
by John Addington Symonds. McKay, 1900.
Virgil is the perfect artist, dealing considerately with a difficult mat ter, melting a reluctant language in the sevenfold furnace of an intense imagination, forging and tempering, retempering and reforging till the last trace of imperfection disappears. The finished work carries the result of all the labor, but it is transformed into beauty. —/. IV. Mackail.
132
Aeneids ; done into English verse by William Morris. Longmans, 1875.
Not only a remarkable poem, but one of the most important criticisms ever made on Virgil. Mr. Morris, who alone has given us the Virgilian sweetness, keeps as closely to the original as Conington himself. —J. W.
Mackail.
133
Whitman, Walt. Leaves of grass ; abridged edition with an
introd. by Emory Holloway. Doubleday, 1926.
His first and most obvious service to poetic art was his insistence on freedom of form—his rejection of the usually accepted English metrics, and his success in writing great poems, without their aid. His second was the rejection of cliches, including archaic diction and so-called poetic phrasing. His third service, his reassertion of the ancient conception of the poet as a prophet, and of poetry, as religion, as an ecstatic expression of faith. —Harriet Monroe.
134
Wordsworth, William. Complete poetical works.
bridge ed. ) Houghton, 1904.
Works ; tr. into English prose by John Conington ; ed.
What Wordsworth does to us is to assuage, to reconcile, to fortify.
. . . [He] has the skill to lead us, so long as we yield ourselves to his influence, into inner moods of settled peace . . . to give us quietness, strength, steadfastness and purpose, whether to do or to endure. —John Morley.
135
Poems : chosen and ed. by Matthew Arnold. Macmillan, 1879.
I by no means say that it contains all which in Wordsworth's poems is interesting. But it contains, I think, everything, or nearly everything, which may best serve him with the majority of lovers of poetry, nothing which may disserve him. —Preface.
(Cam
26 POETRY AND POETS
136
Yeats, William Butler. Poetical works. 2v. Macmillan,
1906, 1912.
Above all he arouses in us the image of a window, like Keats's magic casement, opening upon perilous seas and strange vistas wherein may be discovered the cloudy figures of Deirdre, Dana, Cuchulain, Diarmid and Grania. —James Huneker.
137
His purest successes are like nothing else in English poetry in the
Selected poems. Macmillan, 1921. that they wear. —Darrell Figgis.
II. ANTHOLOGIES
The poet doth, as if your journey should lie through a fair vineyard, at the first give you a cluster
of grapes, that, full of that taste, you may
long to pass further. —Sir Philip Sidney.
138
Alden, Raymond Macdonald, ed. Poems of the English
race. Scribner, 1921.
Intended to show sufficiently the forms and themes to serve the needs and pleasures of younger readers.