No More Learning

No one else in English poetry, save Shakespeare, has in expression quite the fascinating felicity of Keats, his perfection of loveliness. — Matthew Arnold.
Kipling, Rudyard. Rudyard Kipling's verse; inclusive edi
tion, 1885-1918. Doubleday, 1919.
The new and invigorating thing was that Kipling had taken the ballad meters and written stories about modern men and things. . . . No one
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had put such a vision into ballad poetry almost as simple as the old ballads. . . . Finally no one had taken the language of the streets, of the army, of the ships and made it poetry that was not humorous only, but often told unforgettable truths about life—its exhilaration, its nobility, its cruelty. — The winged horse.
73
Lang, Andrew. Tales of Troy and Greece. Longmans, 1907.
Stories of the Iliad and the Odyssey told in simple language, but the stories are richer because told with much detail of Greek customs and ways of living.
74
Lanier, Sidney.
Poems; ed. by his wife with a memorial by W. H. Ward. rev. ed. Scribner, 1916.
The more you read "Marshes of Glynn" and the more you read any of Lanier's poetry the more certain you feel that he was among the truest men of letters whom our country has produced. He exhibits a lyric power hardly to be found in any other American. —Barrett Wendell.
75
Lawton, William
Yale, 1923.
Cranston. The soul of the anthology.
A general introduction to the Anthology with original translations of
these poems of obscure, often unknown, deathless poets.
76
Lindsay, Vachel. Collected poems. Macmillan, 1923.
From the first this poet has been led by certain sacred and impas sioned articles of faith—faith in beauty, in goodness, in the splendor of common things and common experiences. —Harriet Monroe.
77
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. Complete poetical works. (Cambridge ed. ) Houghton, 1908.
Longfellow wrote with an admirable simplicity. . . . He has a lasting
place in poetry but not among the few supreme singers.
were to become great because he wrote poetry that millions of people love and read, Longfellow would be a great poet. —The winged horse.
78
Lowell, James Russell. Poetical works. (Cambridge ed. )
Houghton, 1896.
From Lowell I have myself received more help than from any other writer whatsoever. . . . For real utility, I think his shrewd sense and stern moral purpose worth all Keats and Shelley put together. I don't compare him with Keats, but I go to him for other articles —which I can't get from- Keats — namely Conscience, Cheerfulness and Faith. — John Ruskin.
79
Marvin, Francis Sydney. The adventures of Odysseus re told in English. (Everyman) Dutton, 1921.
. . . If a poet
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80
Masefield, John. Poems. 2v. Macmillan, 1925.
Lover of the sea and of men, himself a sailor for a time in his youth, he has blended the beauty of older English poetry with the leap of modern life. . . . In later poems Masefield writes at times with a calm golden beauty. — The winged horse.
81
Masters, Edgar Lee. Spoon River anthology. Macmillan, 1915.
[He] took an Illinois town and made a book of the stories which the gravestones might tell. . . . He made Americans feel the sweep and surge, the joy and pity of modern life. — The winged horse.
82
Meredith, George. Poetical works ; with some notes by G. M.
Trevelyan. Scribner, 1912.
Modern poetry owes much both to Meredith and Mr. Hardy—to Meredith a legacy of indomitable courage, "the warrior heart. " . . . Meredith's faith is the faith of the Stoic, who recognizes the distinction between the things that are and the things that are not "within our power" to alter or to understand. —R. H. Strachan.
83
Millay, Edna St. Vincent. Renascence, and other poems.
Kennerley, 1921.
In her sonnets and poetic plays and short lyrics [she] has wrought some of the finest poems since Emily Dickinson. . . . There is less of terrific intensity in the younger poet's work, but more of human life. — The winged horse.
84
Milton, John. Poetical works; with introd. by David Mas-
son. (Globe ed. ) Macmillan, 1877.
From the movement of the age in which he is the supreme figure in English poetry, [he] stands from first to last apart in magnificent isola
tion. Mackail.
—
. . . He stands now, as he stood in his own time, alone. /. W.
85
Moore, Thomas. Poetical works ; ed. by A. D. Godley. Ox
ford, 1910.
Oddly enough there is no poet in English except Goldsmith who appeals to simple people so much as Moore. These two can often bring poetry home in triumph where even Shakespeare would never find an entrance. — Stephen Gwynn.
86
Morris, William. Poems; sel. and ed. by P. R. Colwell.
Crowell, 1904.
The answer to the criticism that holds narrative poetry to be the humblest order of the art is to be made in two words—Chaucer, Morris.
THE CHOSEN POETS: TEXTS 19
In the hands of the two men the form attains a distinction that proves forever that, when employed with mastery, it is capable of the noblest ends. . . . Morris did something in the diction of his poetry that had never before, and is never likely again to be attempted successfully, he made an archaic idiom a living, personal and original thing. —John Drinkwater.
87
The earthly paradise. Longmans, 1871.
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.
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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-
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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
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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. . .