R. K. R. Thornton

A wonderful set of retellings of Edward Thomas's Adelstrop in the various styles of everyone from Chaucer to Wendy Cope through Tennyson, Houseman and A. A. Milne.

Example: Bashō

Engine's unplanned halt;
In hush of midsummer noon
Ripples of bird song.

A superior collection of poetry, thus 5 stars, although certainly not every poem is 5 stars. This is a second edition, with an infusion of woman poets, and it is the better for it. The poems by the women are almost all excellent, and there are some humorous ones as well, such as by Constance Naden, whose life was sadly short (as is the case for a few of the folks in this book.) This is not all decadent poetry, although it certainly encompasses it, but really a survey of the poetry being show more written during the 1890s, including lots of Yeats' early work, Kipling, Housman, and many others. You'll discover lots of gems here by writers you may not be too familiar with, and you'll be seeking out their works on Project Gutenberg or elsewhere. There is a later Penguin collection of decadent poetry that I don't have, but it seems much narrower than this collection. I'm so glad I came across this one in a used book store. Highly highly recommended. show less

Vastly under-rated period of English/British poetry, suffered unjustly by comparison with the French. Symons is a top, top poet; as are Bosie's sonnets. decadence everywhere. Cigarettes, absinthe, dancing girls on the staircase ...