No More Learning

Medea; Trojan women; Electra; tr. by Gilbert Murray. Oxford, 1907.
14 POETRY AND POETS
50
Goldsmith, Oliver. (Standard lib. ) Methuen, 1905.
He contrived in his short life to leave behind him some of the most finished didactic poetry in the language; some unsurpassed familiar verse ; a series of essays ranking only below Lamb's ; a unique and original novel ; and a comedy which, besides being readable, is still acted to delight audiences. . . . —The stuff is Goldsmith —Goldsmith's phil osophy, Goldsmith's heart Goldsmith's untaught grace, simplicity and sweetness. —Austin Dobson.
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Hardy, Thomas. Collected poems. Macmillan, 1920.
His melancholy, his deep sense of pity, his haunting consciousness of the irony of time which makes men's love and hatred and envy to per ish —these reflect themselves in the earliest as in the latest poems. — Harold Williams.
52
Herrick, Robert. Poems; a selection from Hesperides and noble numbers; introd. by T. B. Aldrich. (Century classics) Century, 1900.
There is no English poet so thoroughly English as Herrick. He painted the country life of England of his own time as no other poet has painted it at any time. —Introduction.
53
Hesiod, the poems and fragments done into English prose with
introd. by A. W. Mair. Oxford, 1908.
He made a kind of encyclopedia of the gods, their ancestry, birth, adventures and habits. He wrote also Works and days, a long poem about the ways to plough and sow and the way to choose a wife and to educate children and to go about farming and trading. —The winged horse.
Homer. The Iliad and the Odyssey: various translations.
The Homeric poets have achieved more completely than any latter-day
. . . As the reader turns the pages
writer, the art of telling a story.
and the swift, full rhythm seems to grow into distinct pictures of men or animals full of passion and energy in a world of bright colors and tints he becomes conscious of one dominating theme, the glory and the pride which surrounds human beings. —H. V. Routh.
54
Others have produced translations, but Pope's work is a poem. . . . The reader who is impervious to the beauty of the work must, at the same time, be impervious to much in Homer. —Edward Bensly.
55
The Iliad ; tr. by Alexander Pope ; ed. by J. S. Watson ;
Flaxman illus. Macmillan, 1860.
tr. into English blank verse by William Cullen Bryant. (Roslyn ed. ) Houghton, 1898.
Smooth, dignified, rather slow blank verse. Despite some little em-
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broidery of Homer's plainest passages, this rendering is a very faithful one. —William C. Lawton.
56
In prose at any rate the thing hardly admits of being better done. — F. D. A. Morshead.
57
The Odyssey ; tr. by Alexander Pope. Bell, n. d. . . .
This poem, then, is an artistic whole; and the key to its unity is the personality of Odysseus, the story of his return to Ithaca . . . this single unbroken thread of human interest aids essentially in making the Odyssey what we believe it is—the best of all good stories that ever were told. —W. C. Lawton.
58
59
Decidedly the best prose translation. The most stirring episodes are given and the story is told in an attractive way. —A. L. A. catalog, 1926.
60
The real merits of Mr. Palmer's translation are its transparent dic tion, its directness, its combination of fidelity with idiom, of dignity with ease and its eminent readableness. —Nation.
Simple versions: 61
The adventures of Odysseus retold in English by F. S. Marvin.
62
63
done into English prose by Andrew Lang, Walter Leaf and Ernest Myers. rev. ed. Macmillan, 1891.
tr. into English blank verse by William Cullen Bryant. (Roslyn ed. ) Houghton, 1899.
done into English prose by S. H. Butcher and A. Lang. rev. ed. Macmillan, 1879.
tr. into English rhythmic prose by G. H. Palmer. Houghton, 1895.
The adventures of Ulysses and the tale of Troy, or the Children's Homer, by Padraic Comm.
The Iliad for boys and girls; told in simple language by A. J. Church.
64
A. J. Church.
The Odyssey for boys and girls told from Homer by
16 POETRY AND POETS
65
Homer. Tales of Troy and Greece by Andrew Lang. Long mans, 1907.
66
Hood, Thomas. Poems; ed. by Alfred Ainger. 2v. Mac-
millan, 1897.
Whether we look upon him as a master of frolic, or a master of pathos, his place among English poets is a high one. —Richard Garnett.
67
Horace. Complete works; tr. by various hands. (Everyman)
Dent, 1911.
There is a kind of eternal quality in some laughter and Horace has it. In his songs of varied pattern he stored wisdom, and luminous peace and ridicule and fun and that half-sad thing, humor. And always he has made them in some way beautiful, in all ways human. — The winged horse.
68
Housman, Alfred Edward. A Shropshire lad. Holt, 1900.
Perhaps he learned early from Simonides, and Horace, and Sappho that the poet does well who says much in a few words. At any rate A Shropshire lad is full of poems that do this and in doing so it captures the very spirit of youth, its beauty and quickness and sadness. — The . winged horse.
69
Last poems. Holt, 1922.
In nuance, in subtle and exquisite cadences of music and rhythm only one living poet has a more beautiful faculty than he. — Harold Williams.
70
Hutchinson, Winifred Margaret Lambert. The golden
porch; a book of Greek fairy tales. new ed. Longmans, 1925.
Beautifully told tales from the Odes of Pindar for whom "all Hell is as enchanted ground. " Arcadia, Argos and Thebes are the scenes where heroes fought the monsters, entertained the gods and talked with beasts and birds.
71
Keats, John. Poetical works; ed. with introd. and textual
notes by H. Buxton Forman. Oxford.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.