A Concise Treasury of GREAT POEMS

by Louis Untermeyer

Book Overview

Excerpt from A Concise Treasury of Great Poems, English and American: From the Foundations of the English Spirit to the Outstanding Poetry of Our Own Time; With Lives of the Poets and Historical... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0671781448
• ISBN13: 9780671781446
• Release Date: September 1971
• Publisher: Pocket
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.

Customer Reviews

One of the best anthologies of English poetry

The selections anthology are slightly more extensive than in most. But what makes this anthology especially useful is the brief introductory essays before each poetic selection and the interpretations given of each poem. Here is an example of Untermeyer's writing , this one from a poet who he was especially close to Robert Frost. " A poem " wrote Frost in a foreward to his COLLECTED POEMS " begins in delight and ends in Wisdom" . The figure is the same as for love." Later considering the quality of surprise in poetry, he added :"For me the initial delight is in the surprise of remembering something I didn't know I knew." The sentence may well explain Frost's hold upon his readers.They have not only learned something new: they have recalled , with a new significance something old.They have remembered something they had forgotten they knew - and loved." This is an anthology both rich in great poetry and in insightful commentary upon it.