No More Learning

The story of both the Iliad and the Odyssey told in beautiful, simple, vigorous, rhythmic prose. — Realms of gold.
31
Cowper, William. Poetical works; ed. by William Benham.
The Odyssey for boys and girls, told from Homer. Macmillan, 1906.
Macmillan, 1893.
We read Cowper . . . for his love of nature and his faithful render
(Globe ed. )
ing of her beauty . . . for his humor, for his pathos
choly interest of his life, and for the simplicity and loveliness of his character. — Thomas Humphry Ward.
32
D. , H. (Hilda Doolittle). Collected poems of H. D. Liveright, 1925.
She has written the most exquisite verse of the imagist type. . . . She has shown, more than any other one poet, how free verse can be as finely polished as verse in rhyme and regular metre. — The winged horse.
33
Alighieri. Yale, 1915.
Dante
The divine comedy ; tr. by Henry Johnson.
A line-for-line blank verse translation, intended to make Dante's meaning as definite as possible, in a style clear and flexible, in modern English.
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tr. by Charles Eliot Norton. 3v. rev. ed. Houghton, 1902.
tr. by H. W. Longfellow. Houghton, 1867.
Longfellow's verse-for-verse, unrhymed translation is far the most accurate of the English translations in verse, and is distinguished also for verbal felicity. . . . The comment accompanying it is extensive and of great value. — Charles Eliot Norton,
. . . for the melan
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De la Mare, Walter. Collected poems, 1901-1918. 2v. Holt. 1920.
His earliest poetry was verses, for children, of lovely, haunting music, but these verses, exquisite as they are, should not hide, from any "who look for deep meaning, values, high imagination in the verse they read, the later more serious poems, with their imaginative beauty, their glamour, their technical skill and charm, of one of the greatest living masters, the enigmatical figure among poets of today. "
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Dickinson, Emily. Complete poems ; with introd. by Martha
Dickinson Bianchi. Little, 1924.
Her poetry is very much like itself and little like any other. It is always brief and for the most part strange. . . . The poems dart at beauty and truth with such an intensity and dancing magic that nothing seems to matter but the life of them. It is strange, living, true poetry. — The winged horse.
38
Dole, Nathan Haskell, ed. The Greek poets ; an anthology. Crowell, 1904.
Selections, in the best obtainable translations, from the greater Greeks. 39
The Latin poets; an anthology. Crowell, 1905. Chosen from the best translations of the great Roman poets.
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Donne, John. Poems; ed. by H. J. C. Grierson. Oxford, 1929.
One of the strangest and greatest ornaments of the Church of Eng land and of English poetry and prose. . . . No English poet of the past has exercised a stronger influence upon the younger poets of today. — Introd.
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Drinkwater, John. Poems, 1908-1919. Houghton, 1919.
its imagery bright
His verse has dignity, sweetness and nobility, but it has also pith,
vigor and clarity. . . . Its imagination is sunny and clear. —M. C. Sturgeon.
. . .
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Dryden, John. Poetical works. (Globe ed. ) Macmillan, 1897.
Not only in his own generation, or in the next, but in all that have succeeded, he has stood on the shelves of writers and offered the stim ulus of a style that is both musical and stout. Poets of widely varying complexions have made important use of him, never exactly reproducing him, for that is impossible even if desirable, but drawing from him the strength or beauty they have seemed to need. —Mark Van Doren.
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THE CHOSEN POETS : TEXTS 13
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Poems. (Centenary ed. ) Hough
ton, 1904.
The whole world takes on novelty in his verse; on all natural objects there is a lustre as if they were fresh bathed with dew and morning. . . . The verse is pervaded with the indescribable coloring of mountain sides, and the browns and greens of wide country prospects. . . . One often has, in reading him, that feeling of eternity in the thought which is the sign royal of greatness. —G. E. W oodberry.
He is the greatest master of imaginative music ever born in Attica. He analyses, probes, discusses and shrinks from no sordidness; then he turns right away from the world and escapes "to the caverns that the sun's feet tread," or similar places, where things all are beautiful and interesting. . . . He saw too deep into the world and took things too rebelliously to produce calm and successful poetry. Yet many will feel as Philemon did: "If I were certain that the dead had consciousness, I would hang myself to see Euripides. " —Gilbert Murray.
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And then came Gilbert Murray, with fire and song, and made an English Electra of Euripides that blazed uplifted, like Swinburne's Atalanta. —Chicago Evening Post.
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Everett, William, ed. The Italian poets since Dante ; accom
panied by verse translations. Scribner, 1904.
Presents a little known and delightful literature by means of critical and biographical sketches, with verse translations of specimen poems. — A. L. A. catalog, 1926.
47
Flecker, James Elroy. Collected poems. Doubleday, 1917.
His ideal in poetry was the jewelled phrase, the gem-like verse, the exquisitely chiselled stanza or poem. "It is not," he declared, "the poet's business to save man's soul, but to make it worth saving. " —Harold Williams.
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Frost, Robert. Selected poems. Holt, 1930.
He has been a farmer most of his life, and no poet, except Burns, has known farm work and farm thoughts so well. But Frost knows also the beauty of books and the beauty of thought and what he writes is both close to earth and close to eternity. —The winged horse.
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Goldsmith, Oliver. Poems and plays. (Everyman) Dutton, 1910.
44 Euripides.
Euripides translated into English rhyming verse by Gilbert Murray. Oxford, 1902.
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.
bl
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.
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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.
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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.
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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-
THE CHOSEN POETS: TEXTS IS
broidery of Homer's plainest passages, this rendering is a very faithful one. —William C. Lawton.
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In prose at any rate the thing hardly admits of being better done. — F. D. A. Morshead.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
THE CHOSEN POETS: TEXTS 17
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Marvin, Francis Sydney. The adventures of Odysseus re told in English. (Everyman) Dutton, 1921.
. . . If a poet
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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. . .