Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
Loading... The New Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1950 (original 1972; edition 1972)by Helen Gardner (Editor)
Work InformationThe New Oxford Book of English Verse by Helen Gardner (1972)
Poetry Corner (94) Loading...
Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. If one had to say where can you find in fewer than 1,000 pages the best of English poetry, here it is. Daily Telegraph `by far the most balanced and most wide-ranging [anthology] we have, offering superlative value to almost every taste' The Times `Dame Helen has seen through this enormous task with affection, wit and wonderful thoroughness.' Times Literary Supplement `Her knowledge of English poetry is both extensive and intensive; her critical standards are eminently worthy of respect...The reading public has every reason to be grateful to her.' Critical Quarterly `The book remains a continuous and rewarding pleasure...It is a cause of wonder how easily poems of the recent past fit with those written centuries ago without jarring or disturbance.' New York Times no reviews | add a review
Belongs to Series
"Begins in 1250 and represents the full range of English non-dramatic verse over the next seven centuries"--Publisher's description. No library descriptions found. |
Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)821.008Literature English & Old English literatures English poetry English poetry {by more than one author} Modified standard subdivisions Collections of literary texts not limited by time period or kind of formLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |
The glosses provided for obscure words are too rare - this is particularly a problem with the earliest poems. The spelling has sometimes been modernised but sometimes not and it leaves some words very confusing and the whole poem near impossible to understand.
There are no meaningful notes on meaning or context and for many poems there's no comment on source. Poems aren't ever given a year of composition which makes context even harder to discern sometimes.
There's no contents or an index of poem titles - I realise this isn't always possible but it'd still be useful. There's just an index of poets and first lines. Which is useful! But sometimes you need other things too.
The book feels like it REALLY overweights earlier poets from Elizabethan times etc. There *feels* like there's fewer modern poets than you'd expect. Maybe I'm wrong on that. The entirety of the Wasteland is reproduced so that's something I guess. I dunno
I know books like these rarely have notes etc but still. It's hard for a poetry newbie to get into some of this stuff.
I didn't exactly finish but maybe read like 20%? Which I think isn't unreasonable. I find poetry hard to get into but yeah there are obviously good poems here. Not gonna rate because I can't really judge but keeping the above criticisms in mind it's probably not ideal if you're not good with poetry