No More Learning

The poets mentioned are, almost all of them, those celebrated in The winged horse and the editions are, where there was choice, simple ones which yet could be relied upon to be correct.
In short, the list is a reader's list, not a student's or a buyer's list. Its sole purpose is to enhance, perhaps, delight in reading the poets' own work. In that hope it was originally made and in that hope it has been revised.
January, 1931
Theresa West Elmendorf
n 155
CONTENTS I. The Chosen Poets : Texts
IV. The Forms, Measures and Rhythms of English Poetry
V. Studies of the Chosen Poets and Their Poetry
VI. Texts and Studies of the Poets Arranged by Periods or the Poets' Dates
Anthologies
II.
III. The Joy and Praise of Poetry
I.
THE CHOSEN POETS: TEXTS
By poetry I mean what has been written by Homer, Dante, Shakespeare and some others. —
Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch.
1
Aeschylus. Lyrical dramas; tr. into English verse by John
Stuart Blackie. [1850] (Everyman) Dutton, 1906.
In telling the great hero stories [he] made human sorrow majestic, but chiefly celebrated the power and justice of the gods. . . . To Aeschy lus Zeus and his companions were just, though fearful, much like the Jehovah of the Hebrew prophets. —The winged horse.
2
Aiken, Conrad. Selected poems. Scribner, 1929.
He has woven melodies that might have charmed the Lady of Shalott back into her dream world. . . . He can make pictures lovely in their strangeness.
3
Appleton, William Hyde, comp. Greek poets in English verse. Houghton, 1893.
Dutton, 1909.
Aristophanes splits the heavens with a jest, and the rays of truth stream down from inaccessible solitudes of speculation. He has no epigram, no cleverness, no derivative humor. He is bald foolery. And yet he conveys mysticism : he conveys divinity. He alone stands still while the whole empyrean of Greek life circles about him. —/. /. Chapman.
5
Arnold, Matthew. Poetical works. (Globe ed. ) Macmillan,
1907.
A defective ear, an uncertain choice and mastery of metre, yet often a lovely, unsought, unaffected music, always a tender, elegiac passion, a pure drawing and coloring of nature, a philosophic and scholarly aroma blended with exquisite delicacy of sentiment. —Sir Thomas Herbert Warren.
1
4 Aristophanes.
The Acharnians, and two other plays; tr. by J. H. Frere [1840] ; introd. by J. P. Maine. (Everyman)
8 POETRY AND POETS
6
Beowulf, The Story of ; tr. by Ernest J. B. Kirtlan into mod
ern English prose. Crowell, 1914.
The Anglo-Saxon hero-monster story. How the hero killed Grendel, the monster, and followed his horrible mother to her lair and how the Danes feasted and sang hero songs in King Hrothgar's hall.
7
Beowulf: a new translation for fireside and class room; by
William Ellery Leonard. Century, 1923.
8
Binyon, Laurence. Selected poems. Macmillan, 1922.
He is more the poet when he departs from everyday life to kingdoms of myth, mysticism or pure imagination. His poetry combines the qual ities of fine scholarship, cultivated taste, and a nature sensitive to the ideal of beauty. — Harold Williams.
9
Blake, William. Poetical works ; ed. by John Sampson. Ox
ford, 1905.
Nothing is pleasing to God except the glad invention of beautiful and exalted things. — William Blake.
10
Bridges, Robert. Poetical works, excluding the eight dramas. Oxford, 1912.
Each one of the shorter poems is a mosaic in beautiful word-pattern, each word chosen with perfect fitness to serve its double function of expressing thought and enhancing the melody of the whole. — Harold
Williams.
11
Brooke, Rupert. Collected poems; with introd. by G. E.
Woodberry and a biographical note by Margaret Lavington.
Dodd, 1915.
A genuine poet, with talent almost of the first if not of the very best order. —Springfield Republican.
12
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. Complete poetical works.
(Cambridge ed. ) Houghton, 1900.
A pure singer with a lovely, lyric tenderness, the best poet of her sex since Sappho. . . . Her lyric mastery shines in many passages of her writings. — The winged horse.
13
Browning, Robert. Complete poetical works. (Globe ed.
Macmillan, 1915.
rev. )
14
THE CHOSEN POETS: TEXTS 9
Poems. (Gladstone ed. ) Crowell, n. d.
The significant thing about Browning is that he invaded still another province in the interests of poetry; he showed that the psychological analysis of motives underlying human conduct was full of dramatic possibilities. —Herbert Read.
15
Bulfinch, Thomas. The age of chivalry, or Legends of King
Arthur; enl. and rev. by E. E. Hale. Lothrop, 1858.
One of the earliest popular versions of the Arthur stories. It charmed many readers long before Sidney Lanier and Howard Pyle made their fascinating versions. It adds some stories told from the Mabinogion, legends sung by Welsh bards.
16
Burns, Robert. Poems, songs and letters; ed. by Alexander
Smith. (Globe ed. ) Macmillan, 1868. 17
Poems and songs; introd. by James Douglas. (Every man) Dutton, 1905.
Burns was bigger than any cause. He was bigger than a love fo:
his rollicking fun with pity and tenderness as only Chaucer and Shake speare among the other great poets have been able to do. . . . He died leaving poetry a different thing from what it had been when he found it. —The winged horse.
18
Byron, George Gordon Noel, Lord. Complete poetical works ;
liberty, or the love of his native Scotland
. . .
he had an understanding heart. This showed in his poetry about common men and animals. It showed in his humor, softening the sting of his keen satire and flavoring
with introductory memoir by Sir Leslie Stephen. Macmillan, 1907.
(Globe ed. )
His work and Shelley's, beyond that of all our other poets, recall or suggest the wide and high things of nature ; the large likeness of the elements ; the immeasurable liberty and stormy strength of waters and winds. —A. C. Swinburne.
19
20
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury tales : the Prologue and four tales, with the Book of the Duchess and six lyrics; tr. into modern English verse by Frank Ernest Hill. Longmans, 1930.
He is a poet of taste, erudition and skill, a skilful versifier in his own right, and if it is necessary to translate Chaucer, his pen was a happy
Poetry of Byron; chosen and arranged by Matthew Arnold. Macmillan, 1881.
10 POETRY AND POETS
choice. He makes the lines run, as Chaucer did. He keeps the savor of the original. His poem is excellent modern verse. —H. S. Canby.
21
22
The combined work of a Chaucer scholar, and a poet. A charming and excellent piece of work. —Booklist.
23
24
Chaucer; ed. by H. N. McCracken. Yale, 1913.
Modern reader's Chaucer ; the complete poetical works,
now first put into modern English by J. S. P. Tatlock and
Percy Mackaye. Macmillan, 1912.
Selections from Chaucer; ed. by W. A. Neilson and H. R. Patch. Harcourt, 1921.
Student's Chaucer ; ed. by the Rev. W. W. Skeat, with
a glossary. Oxford.
. . . he will impart some of the power and delicacy of his own vision,. If [the reader] will only stay long and travel [far] he may learn to see with
Chaucer's eyes. That would be to create for himself some such world as Chaucer's —a world of high ideals, but of large tolerance, of frank masculine humor, but of the most perfect delicacy of feeling. —Sir Henry Newbolt.
25
Chesterton, Gilbert Keith. Ballad of the White Horse. Lane, 1911.
It was a convincing stroke of imagination to tell Alfred's story on the background of that gigantic, prehistoric carving which in White Horse Vale rides like a phantom across the landscape.
Heretofore Alfred and his legend have received but a pale and unconvincing treatment in Eng lish poetry. Mr. Chesterton makes him real and magnetic. —Richard Le Gallienne.
26
Church, Alfred John. Heroes of chivalry and romance. Macmillan, 1898.
A simple, vivid telling of the story of Beowulf, of the story of King Arthur and the Round Table, and of the Nibelung Treasure, the Rhine- gold.
27
If [Chaucer] is read largely and with understanding
The Iliad for boys and girls; told from Homer in simple language. Macmillan, 1907.
Dignified, simple, interesting.
THE CHOSEN POETS: TEXTS 11
28
Tells very simply of the homing journey of Ulysses, with the various calls on the way on Cyclops and Circe and other wonders, and of final peace in Ithaca.
29
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Poems ; with an introd. by E. H.
Coleridge. Lane, 1907.
Shelley, you feel, sings like a bird ; Blake, like a child or an angel ; but Coleridge certainly writes music. —Arthur Symons.
30
Colum, Padraic. The adventures of Ulysses and the tale of
Troy, or The children's Homer. Macmillan, 1918.
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.
34
35
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
12 POETRY AND POETS
36
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. "
37
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.
40
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.
41
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.
. . .
42
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.
43
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.
45
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.
46
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.
48
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.
49
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.