The Oxford Book of English Verse

About this book

Here is a treasure house of over seven centuries of English poetry chosen and introduced by Christopher Ricks whom Auden described as "exactly the kind of critic every poet dreams of finding." The Oxford Book of English Verse created in 1900 by Arthur Quiller Couch and selected anew in 1972 by Helen Gardner has established itself as the foremost anthology of English poetry: ample in span liberal in the kinds of poetry presented. This completely fresh selection brings in new poems and poets from all ages and extends the range by another half century to include many twentieth century figures not featured before among them Philip Larkin and Samuel Beckett Thom Gunn and Elaine Feinstein right up to Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney. Here as before are lyric (beginning with medieval song) satire hymn ode sonnet elegy ballad but also kinds of poetry not previously admitted: the riches of dramatic verse by Marlowe Shakespeare Jonson Webster; great works of translation that are themselves true English poetry such as Chapmans Homer (bringing in its happy wake Keatss On First Looking into Chapmans Homer) Drydens Juvenal and many others; well loved nursery rhymes limericks even clerihews. English poetry from all parts of the British Isles is firmly represented Henryson and MacDiarmid for example now join Dunbar and Burns from Scotland; James Henry Austin Clarke and J. M. Synge now join Allingham and Yeats from Ireland; R. S. Thomas joins Dylan Thomas from Wales and Edward Taylor and Anne Bradstreet writing in America before its independence in the 1770s are given a rightful and rewarding place. Some of the greatest long poems are here in their entirety Wordsworths Tintern Abbey Coleridges Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Christina Rossettis Goblin Market alongside some of the shortest haikus squibs and epigrams. Generous and wide ranging mixing familiar with fresh delights this is an anthology to move and delight all who find themselves loving English verse.