Quest for Reality: An Anthology of Short Poems in English

by Kenneth Fields and Yvor Winters

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• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0804002584
• ISBN13: 9780804002585
• Release Date: January 1969
• Publisher: Swallow Press
• Length: 199 Pages
• Weight: 0.52 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The Greatest Poems of All Time

Yvor Winters (1900-1968) decided to illustrate by example what he thought are the greatest poems ever written in English. So here they reside, 185 of them. A few, very few, will be well known to readers of poetry; most are puzzingly obscure. All but a handful (in my view) are so great that it takes one's breath away to read them. Reading them almost makes for mystical experiences. Among the poems that the common critics have missed but Winters found and championed to his dying day are Jonson's "To Heaven", Herbert's "Church Monuments", Very's "Thy Brother's Blood", Winters's own "To the Holy Spirit", and Bowers's "The Astronomers of Mont Blanc". There are many, many more, but these five are probably the greatest of the greats. This is, simply put, the greatest book of poetry ever published in English. If you love poetry, you must find or own a copy. Don't be surprised though. All but a few of the poems are in metrical verse, and they have almost nothing to do with modern "expressivism", the solipsitic "emoting" that passes for good poetry in the tiresome modern age. Here, not a word is wasted, not a phrase is trivial. Every syllable, every beat of every line, counts toward the rational understanding of the human mind and spirit and the proper adjusting of our emotions to that rational understanding. The book contains an excellent introductory essay by a Winters student, Kenneth Fields, who lays out the principles of selection briefly and incisively. In itself, that essay is one of the best introductions to poetry ever written and alone will be worth all the effort you make in finding this out-of-print book. Winters has done something here that every critic should: show us the results of his theories. What a great work of poetic literature.