Best Poems of the English Language: From Chaucer Through Robert Frost Book

Quite a good selection. Although in the last section of modernists, it strikes me that this is what happens when you have a collection of brilliant people with large vocabularies, goodly amounts of discretionary income, who are at the same time totally fogged.

Love to read anything from this wonderful selection of poetry! Amazing book!

I love poetry and expected this to be a good addition to my collection; something that would cover some of the more well known poets. Unfortunately, they are the 'best poems' as judged by Harold Bloom. Bloom is no doubt an expert in the field and to be admired for his abilities and knowledge, but the poems and poets he selected for this book are not the traditional favourites, but rather a rag tag mix of rather obscure writers. As far as the analysis supplied by Bloom, I slogged through some of it, but honestly, I find him not only difficult to read, but also a rather pompous, elitist ass.

An exemplary collection of the most sublime poetry in English, beginning with Chaucer and ending, contra the title, with Hart Crane. Bloom, the world's living expert of the Western poetic tradition, makes consistently exceptional choices for inclusion in this massive volume, and provides profound and scintillating commentary. This book is simply a treasure trove of the greatest cognitive music in our great language. An exemplary collection of the most sublime poetry in English, beginning with Chaucer and ending, contra the title, with Hart Crane. Bloom, the world's living expert of the Western poetic tradition, makes consistently exceptional choices for inclusion in this massive volume, and provides profound and scintillating commentary. This book is simply a treasure trove of the greatest cognitive music in our great language.

I discovered this anthology of poetry for this class, but I absolutely will be using it for my English classes once school starts again. I love books like this, especially when the author calls it "The Best...", which obviously opens the door to controversy and disagreement. To me, this provokes thought and discussion, and you can begin to debate why something made it and something did not.





While I wouldn't say I am a poetry "expert," I have done my share of teaching poetry over the past six years, and I have come to know some of the bigger works from the English language (relatively speaking). In high school, you cover all of the classics and major poems from the various time periods, and many of the ones I have taught are in here. But what makes this stand out is that there are some poems I do not know, and I am now willing to use these poems to complement the poems we are required to read for school. The commentary in this text is also interesting, as some of the things Bloom says I agree with, and some of it just seems forced (his comments on Poe, for instance). Nevertheless, it makes for a great collection and can be used as a supplement for an English anthology class OR it could be used as a primary text for a poetry high school course. It would be great to get students to argue Bloom's comments about each poem and really get kids thinking through this material. Great stuff here and highly recommended for high school teachers.

This will always be in "currently reading". A constant inspiration!

Harold Bloom stuns me with observations like: We begin to apprehend Blake when we realize that for him "human nature" is a wholly unacceptable phrase, an absolute contradiction, or, as he said, "an impossible absurdity." What was human about us, Blake insisted, was the imagination; what was natural about us had to be redeemed by the imagination, or else it would destroy us."

I found this in a box in storage. My mom gave me this book for Christmas in 2004. The note she wrote on the inside cover tells me to please not read the dirty poems til I'm older.


Well well well, my how the turn tables

The author, Harold Bloom, has been an eminent scholar, the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University, was a MacArthur Prize Fellow, and author of numerous volumes. In his Introduction, he observes that (Page xxvii) "My chronological limits are set by Geoffrey Chaucer, born around 1343, and Hart Crane, born in 1899." There is a useful introductory essay, "The Art of Reading Poetry," that would be of interest to those who take poetry seriously.



But it is the poetry that is at the center of this fat volume (the last poem, by Hart Crane, ends on page 959; I don't know about others, but I like big collections of poetry!



In high school, we read Chaucer, and I still remember the first few lines (repeated in this work) of "The Canterbury Tales."



"Whan that Aprill with his shoures sote

The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote,

And bathed every veyne in swich licour."



Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love":



"Come live with me and be my love,

And we will all the pleasures prove

That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,

Woods or steepy mountain yields."



There is a healthy collection of Shakespeare, but since I recently reviewed a volume of his sonnets, no need for overkill here. But the selections do represent Shakespeare's art nicely.



Then there is Richard Lovelace's "To Althea, from Prison," with the well known final stanza:



"Stone walls do not a prison make,

Nor iron bars a cage. . . ."



And so many more. . . . Thomas Gray's "Elegy written in a country churchyard" or William Blake's "The Tyger" (I still recall and thrill at the following lines:

"Tyger, tyger, burning bright.

In the forest of the night;

What immortal hand or eye,

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?") to the Romantics' poetry (represented by poets such as Wordsworth, Coleridge, Lord Byron, Shelley, and Keats). Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, Lord Tenneyson, the Rossettis, William Butler Yeats, Rudyard Kipling, Robert Frost, T. S. Eliot, and so on.



In short, a cornucopia of poetry in the English language tradition. If that is a genre that you enjoy, running from Chaucer to crane, then this volume should suit you nicely.

A good selection admirably edited. With the caveat that he will ignore anyone born after 1900, he gets away with the title quite nicely. However, I laughed a bit to notice, within five minutes of skimming, that Bloom's two most annoyingly persistent traits were fully on display:



1. A need to flaunt his cantankerous disregard for the academically/politically "correct."



2. His need to sell Hart Crane.



For under $20, this is a worthwhile book, and it's teaching me stuff I didn't know.

Bloom offers interesting commentary on authors and poems that sets this volume apart from all the other compilations that I own. While I disagree with some of his selections and omissions I applaud his style and ambition. The introductions and commentaries demonstrate Bloom's quality as a writer by presenting higher thinking that is very easy to understand which makes this particular anthology--in my mind at least--my favorite volume to recommend to readers interested in getting into poetry on a deeper level.

Harold Brown is a genius. A poetry genius. He dissects poems from some of the best writers to ever live. Highly recommend if you are a poetry junky, or even if you are just dipping your goes into poetry (this is a great place to start!)

A very comprehensive anthology of English poetry. A must for all who love poetry!

Have to confess I skimmed large parts this one. Read all the commentaries carefully; skimmed a lot of the love and god poems. But the damn thing had 959 pages of text!



I'd never really appreciated Tennyson's Ulysses before. Maybe that's a function of age. But these words hit me like never before:



Come my friends

'Tis not to late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sale beyond the sunset, and the baths

Off all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Though much is taken, much abides; and though

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved heaven and earth; that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.



I have tears in my eyes. Everything from Robert Heinlein's creepy swan song to Frodo boarding the ship to the western kingdom, to a death well earned, to Angel taking on the dragon.



He also reminded me how much of poetry is about politics. At least from Elizabeth I, poets were in the great battles of the age. Milton, of course, I knew. Propping up or tearing down . . .



Weird bit from Pope's Dunciad, book 4: (261)



Yet, yet a moment, one dim ray of light

Indulge, dread Chaos, and eternal Night!

Of darkness visible so much be lent,

As half to show, have veil, the deep intent.

Ye Powers! Whose mysteries restored I sing,

To whom Time bears me on his rapid wing,

Suspend a while your force inertly strong,

Then take at once the poet and the song.

Now flamed the Dog-star's unpropitious ray,

Smote every brain and withered every bay;

Sick was the sun, the owl forsook its bower,

The moon-struck prophet felt the madding hour:

Then rose the seed of Chaos and of Night

To blot out order and extinguish light,

Of dull and venal a world to mould,

And bring Saturnian days of lead and gold.

She mounts the throne: her head a cloud concealed,

In broad effulgence all below revealed;

('Tis thus aspiring Dulness every shines)

Soft on her lap her laureate son reclines.



Okay, I read the poem as Pope bemoaning the fall and debasement of the Enlightenment in the hands of slackers and posers, but it could also be read to prophesize Dru's siring of Spike. I've always believed Spike was really an enlightenment figure, after all.



Moving on through the scifiverse to William Blake, seems he did work called the "Orc-Urizen" cycle about the fallen existence. In one poem, the Mental Traveller, "The human cycle moves between an infant Orc an aged, beggared Urizen, and then back again. The natural sequence is Tirzah (Nature-as-Necessity), Vala (Nature-as-Temptress), and Rahab (Nature-as-Destroyer) and then back again." 311.



So we get this poem, a classic of the English Canon, which Harold Bloom, Harvard and Yale professor and a man I adore, calls one of the best in the English language. It says in part (spelled as in the original):



I traveld thro' a Land of Men

A Land of Men & Women too

And hard & saw such dreadful things

As cold Earth wanderers never knew



For there the Babe is born in joy

That was begotten in dire woe

Just as we Reap in joy the fruit

Which we in bitter tears did sow



And if the Babe is born a Boy

He's given to a Woman Old

Who nails him down upon a rock

Catches his shrieks in cups of gold



She binds iron thrones around his head

She pierces both his hands & feet

She cuts his heart out at his side

To make it feel both cold & heat



Her fingers number every Nerve

Just as a Miser counts his gold

She lives upon his shrieks & cries

As she grows young as he grows old.



Till he becomes a bleeding youth

And she becomes a Virgin bright

Then he rends up his Manacles

And binds her down for his delight



He plants himself in all her Nerves

Just as a Husbandman his mould

And she becomes his dwelling place

And Garden fruitful seventy fold.



Well, huh. That's . . . making me look at the possible relation between Vala and Danny boy in a whole new light. And there seems to be something of the Go'uld lurking in there too. And certain fan sites I always feel guilty about peaking at.



Other good bits - Whitman's Song of Myself's humanity through reflections -



I Celebrate myself, and sing myself

And what I assume you shall assume,

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.



Wonderful. Mutability of matter. Matter/mother/matrix/metro . . . . all the same thing . . .



He put Lewis Carroll's Hunting of the Snark in here. I hadn't put together that the Baker, the one who puts together that some Snarks are Boojums, quotes Lord Nelson's signal from the battle of Trafalger; that's the source for "England Expects Every Man to Do His Duty." Or that was a concept communicated by signal flags; mutable in phrasing. The nameless Baker (they are all nameless; his is the only one whose lack of a name is pointed out) tells them all the day the embark - but forgets that they speak English. So the message is not received. The world screaming at us in languages we can't understand.



Bloom utterly rejects the notion that Carroll was a pedophile, or that the Snark is little girls. He suggests the hint to the meaning is in the repeated stanza:



They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;

They pursued it with forks and hope;

They threatened its life with a railway-share

They charmed it with smiles and soap.



Life, itself? Meaning, itself? Whatever the object of our desire might be? The foolishness of using our toolset to find it? What could one find with thimbles, care, forks, hope, smiles, and soap, while armed with a railway share?



And the banker uses a check? The baker comes himself?



Finally, I should look into the poems of John Brooks Wheelwright. Socialist and mythmaker. Hark at "Fish Food: An Obituary to Hart Crane"



As you drank deep as Thor, did you think of milk or wine?

Did you drank blood, while you drank the salt deep?

Or see through the film of light, that sharpened your rage with its stare,

A shark, dolphin, turtle? Did you not see the Cat?

Who, when Thor lifted her, unbased the cubic ground?

You would drain fathomless flagons to be slaked with vacuum -

The sea's teats have suckled you, and you are sunk far

In bubble-dreams, under swaying translucent vines

Of thundering interior wonder. Eagles can never now

Carry parts of your body, over cupped mountains

As emblems of their anger, embers to fire self-hate

To other wonders, unfolding white, flaming vistas.



Fishes now look upon you, with eyes which do not gossip . . .



[skipped a bit]



. . . the will seeped from your blood. Seeds

of meaning popped from the pods of thought. And you fall.

And the unseen

Churn of time changes the pearl-hurled ocean

Like a pearl-shaped drop, in a huge water-clock

Falling from came to go, from come to went. And you fell.



Waters received you. Waters of our Birth in Death dissolve you.

Now you have willed it, may the Great Wish take you.

As the Mother-Lover takes your woe away, and cleansing

Grief and you away, you sleep, you do not snore.

Lie still. Your rage is gone on a bright flood

Away; as, when a bad friend held out his hand

You said, "do not talk any more. I know you meant no harm."

What was the soil whence your anger sprang, who are deaf

As the stones to the whispering flight of the Mississippi's rivers?

What did you see as you fell? What did you hear as you sank?

Did it make you drunken with hearing?

I will not ask any more. You saw or heard no evil.



To life, to die, to strive with gods, to try to do no evil. Wonderful stuff. Good book.

I spent a long time on this book. I've been "currently reading" it for eight years. It's long. There are a lot of poets in here. It's a shit anthology, though. It aims to enshrine a canon that is overwhelmingly white, male, upper class, and English, with a pittance thrown towards women and Scottish, Irish, and American poets. There's no diversity or inclusion beyond that to speak of. 40+ pages are devoted to Walt Whitman; Edna St. Vincent Millay gets one sonnet. There are 56 men before the first woman, Julia Ward Howe, is given one poem. It's a shambolic attempt at offering an insight into "good" poetry. Harold Bloom is a joke.

Three things caused me to buy this book. The first was the inclusion of two Emily Bronte poems by Professor Bloom: 'Stanzas' and 'Last Lines'. The second was the inclusion of T S Eliot's 'The Wasteland' and the third was that 108 poets are represented in this book.



Professor Bloom selected as his chronological limits Geoffrey Chaucer, born around 1343 and Hart Crane born in 1899. Within these parameters is a wealth of British and American poetry to cover a wide range of moods and tastes.



There is something intrinsically personal about anthologies of poetry. Those who enjoy poetry will select favourites based on all manner of criteria. My personal criteria owe little to critical objectivity and much more to subjective assessments of evocative language and the metrics of rhythm.



So, I've come to love the fierce assertion of the 'Last Lines'. Here is the first verse:

'No coward soul is mine,

No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere;

I see Heaven's glories shine,

And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.'



And also to love, for different reasons the self-doubt echoing through 'The Waste Land', which starts with The Burial of the Dead:

'April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.'



It would be remiss of me not to mention some of the other poets included:

Edmund Spenser

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

George Gordon, Lord Byron

Henry David Thoreau

Thomas Hardy

Wilfred Owen

and 100 others.

Professor Bloom has included an essay on 'The Art of Reading Poetry' together with a range of headnotes on poets and poems. If you enjoy poetry anthologies, this may well be a book for your collection as well.

Nothing could be more flattering to the amateur than finding his opinion in accordance with a great eminence in the field, as if one's position, which felt unpopular when formed, was intuitively in tune with a deeper and broader knowledge, waiting for the right moment to commune.



Reading Harold Bloom's boldly titled The Best Poems of the English Language, I had to suppress this feeling on a number of occasions, knowing full well the instances in which I agree with Bloom are as coincidental as tho Nothing could be more flattering to the amateur than finding his opinion in accordance with a great eminence in the field, as if one's position, which felt unpopular when formed, was intuitively in tune with a deeper and broader knowledge, waiting for the right moment to commune.



Reading Harold Bloom's boldly titled The Best Poems of the English Language, I had to suppress this feeling on a number of occasions, knowing full well the instances in which I agree with Bloom are as coincidental as those in which we disagree, and that furthermore, the value of a critic as great and as Bloom is not his correctness but his potential to stimulate thinking. A critic should encourage his reader to take risks.



Fortunately, Bloom is terrible lifeguard, and will not save you from floundering out of your depths. Instead, he delights in tricking you to swim out ever deeper, away from safety. While I disagree with much of his theoretical apparatus, I nevertheless highly recommend this book.



But let's start on where I found Bloom vindicating: He deeply distrusts Eliot and Pound, the principal architects of poetry's Modernist movement, and strives to see their status discounted in comparison to other modern eminences, in particular Hart Crane and Wallace Stevens. The problem is of course that Bloom dislikes these two for different reasons than I do. Yes, Bloom is quick to state that Pound suffers from a "...relative failure to transmute or transcend his precursors." Which is obvious enough--most of Pound's poetry is so overburdened by allusion that it is better described as collage. Yet Bloom seems ready to forgive him for this, explaining that his sin merely one of degree, since he believes the same hyperliterary approach is used successfully by others, including Marianne Moore and T.S. Eliot. What he cannot forgive--in several pages worth of scorn--is his mistreatment of Walt Whitman. Bloom feels Whitman is the preeminent influence on 20th century American poetry, and when Pound disavows his Whitman in verse and prose, Bloom is as incredulous as he is appalled.



As for Eliot, Bloom seems to genuinely like much of his poetry, calling "The Waste Land" a "masterpiece", while calling "Prufrock" the "perhaps the slyest and oddest 'Love Song' in the language". "Preludes" and the slightly obscure "La Figlia Che Piange" also make his cut, while oddly, his charming "Four Quartets", and oft-anthologized "The Hollow Men" do not. Bloom's objection to Eliot is not his poetry, chiefly, but the the damage he did as a literary and cultural critic. Personally I am not especially bothered by Eliot has a literary critic; I'm bothered by the pretentiousness of his poetry and find he shares many of the faults Bloom attributes to Pound. But then there is the matter of politics. Bloom singles out both men for their antisemitism, writing of Pound's Cantos that they "contain material that is not humanly acceptable to me, and if that material is acceptable to others, then they themselves are thereby less acceptable, at least to me". And also to me, and hopefully to you.



Bloom hates the politics but loves the method. Personally I am less sure. The attempt to incorporate allusion, paraphrase, and whole phrase from disparate Western traditions (and languages) to forge a Anglo-English racial myth seems like one of the clear missteps of 20th century literature, though given the current level of sophistication of antisemitism and fascism--spread through algorithm, Russian spies, and the giant cudgel of populist anti-intellectual ignorance--seems almost quaint. I acknowledge that their technique of heavy allusion does not automatically lead to Hitler apologetics, but if you examine its track record, this type of top-heavy tradition-worship tends to fracture culture even further, in the same way all eschatologies seem keen on bringing about the end they prophesize.



Bloom needs the Modernists, though, even if he is the only critic I have found who seems to close to redeeming them. He needs them because they enact his critical theories of literature more completely than anyone else. Bloom's central literary concern is influence, and as he rightly believes poetry is an art of remembering and understanding--both equally and at the same time. As a corollary, Bloom posits each new poet recalls and attempts to understand the poems before him, and that one of the central features of any poem is its relation to those before it, in a way that is more intense and more self-conscious than in any other human endeavor.



I have my doubts. Predecessor is certainly an important element to consider when writing a poem. But it is paralyzing to obsess over it. Poets are like athletes. A sprinter knows full well the same course has been contested by millions of similar athletes before. But at the time of the contest, the only thing that matters is the act itself. It's key to be in the moment, in the now. Otherwise the energy will be wasted. Anyway, who can compete with Wordsworth? If that's the standard one aspires to, it's better to just give up before the starting gun. Worse, any kind of self-conscious comparison between oneself and previous greats is the mark of self-importance and pretension. It's like when Oasis remarked they were bigger than the Beatles--it's an idiotic thing to say, and where, exactly, is Oasis now?



Sure, reading the poetry of others--especially the greats--is absolutely critical to developing one's ear and sensibility. But poets write their best when those voices from the past aren't so loud as to overwhelm one's own, when it's more of a distant chorus than deafening trading floor. So the problem with the Modernist project to me isn't just politics. It's aesthetics. A good poem isn't necessarily about other poems. It's about the what the poem reports to be about, in the moment it's read, as the act unfolds.



I think to a large extent Bloom knows this; I pick on him for the Modernists but in reality this a quibble with a handful of poets in a collection containing 108 of them. Most of the time I've spent thus far in this anthology was in surprise at discovering another underrated poet who I had only heard of in passing but never read anything of theirs convincing until now. There's a lot of meat on these bones. Yes, his opinions on the brightest stars are interesting. But his ability to rescue the lesser lights is where this collection comes into its own.

I think the first things I should mention about this collection are the positives aspects about it. Bloom is unforgiving in his evaluation of poets and rarely gives contradictory views (perhaps in 2-3 instances, most notably he revered Dr. Samuel Johnson). This is a positive because it allows for simplicity. Secondly, the quality of the poems in this collection are superb. Bloom does a fantastic job also setting expectations and giving a very brief, yet effective bio. It should be noted the downfalls are not so much downfalls as they are minor, but me, a curmudgeon, lament them nonetheless. Bloom doesn't provide consistent evaluation of the poets, in some he gives very brief bios and evaluation of poems and in some they are large didactic passages. It is expected that he would vary the word length of these but these varied on poets of the same caliber. The book is also heavily focused on the earlier poets, eg Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton. As for a guide to the 1800s in English poetry this book does meet expectations.



tl;dr The collection met and exceeded my expectations with minor "issues."

There are plenty of bad poem in here, but where else can you get such a compact history of English poetry selected by a critic who is usually right? For example, he cuts the first and last stanzas of John Clare's Badger, and I trust completely that this was the right decision and that I am not missing anything.



There is less Pope here than Samuel Johnson, but he insists Pope is still far the better poet. The 400 or 500 pages of Wordsworth's The Prelude are reduced to six. Shakespeare is reduced to 20 pages or so. So you feel like you are reading the concentrated distillation of a lifetime of Bloom reading poetry. A lifetime distilled to about 900 packed pages.



I learned a lot and felt like afterwards I was seeing the world through the eyes of poetry. So much human knowledge eventually feels like a philosophy, as person after person circles back to the same themes.



"Something authentically exalted ended with Hart Crane," Bloom writes of a writer I thought I loathed. The compressed expression here converted me and now I love him.



I count myself lucky this book exists.

"Best Poems of the English Language" is a presumptuous title, but Bloom seems to be known for his provocatively assertive opinions. He is, no doubt, a product of his time: his self-importance is heavily derived from his position in the patriarchy and the resultant attitudes show. There are pitifully few women poets among the lot, but I will not fault him for growing up in the environment in which he did. It was not so many years ago I realised, through cultural revolt, that I'd read twenty books "Best Poems of the English Language" is a presumptuous title, but Bloom seems to be known for his provocatively assertive opinions. He is, no doubt, a product of his time: his self-importance is heavily derived from his position in the patriarchy and the resultant attitudes show. There are pitifully few women poets among the lot, but I will not fault him for growing up in the environment in which he did. It was not so many years ago I realised, through cultural revolt, that I'd read twenty books written by a man for every one I'd read written by a woman.



Regardless of these issues, this volume is certainly a very, very good collection, made all the more intriguing by Bloom's biographies accompanying each poet, often written in a frame of context to their development as a poet. His thoughts on the poets and on each poem are interesting reads - it's the next best thing to having a lively discussion with a friend over a poem you've both recently read. At the very least, it's a wonderful primer on classic English-language poets and poetry.

You can't beat cranky old Harold Bloom for selecting poems. Of course, he left out a lot I would have included, but it's fun to see what Bloom does include. I finally got to read a bunch of great poems I always wanted to read but never got around to, and was introduced to poets I never read before. I'll probably re-read a lot of the poems in this book over and over for years to come. This book is an excellent addition to anyone's personal library. Still, it wouldn't be my only poetry anthology choice. It is after all only an anthology of poems in English and there are lots of great poems in translation and in other languages that people should definitely check out. I can't think of any specifically, right now, off the top of my head, but it's fascinating to see what poems and poets make the cut and which do not.

In my college poetry classes, instead of studying those authors who are traditionally considered "great", much time was spent exploring underrepresented voices- obscure poets who fit the bill of not being white males. This wouldn't be a problem, but I needed a proper introduction to poetry first. I left feeling like I had missed out on learning some of the greatest English-speaking poets in history.



Who would give me a proper introduction to the great poets of the English language?



Eventually I di In my college poetry classes, instead of studying those authors who are traditionally considered "great", much time was spent exploring underrepresented voices- obscure poets who fit the bill of not being white males. This wouldn't be a problem, but I needed a proper introduction to poetry first. I left feeling like I had missed out on learning some of the greatest English-speaking poets in history.

This is an anthology that I continually turn to for inspiration and enjoyment. Arranged chronologically from Chaucer to Crane, the anthology is a good introduction to the familiar names in literary history, born before the twentieth century, as well as some that are somewhat less familiar to this reader. For example Leonie Adams, John Brooks Wheelwright, Trumbull Stickney, and George Darley are included among the better known Keats, Tennyson, Stevens and Frost, to name a few of the poets included in this collection. I trust Harold Bloom as a guide to great literature and his standards for poetry are high. There my be great poems that are not included in this collection, but I doubt that there are any poems included that are not great.

It is difficult to review such a anthology, except to say it does the job magnificiently. It does not leave the reader helpless - it introduces the poet with some analysis and then presents the poem simply to be enjoyed to give a taste to the reader. The range of poets, excluding the nauseating contemporary poets, is simply magnificient and unrivalled - especially when considered that this is one man and even for some two-good-poems poets Bloom does introductions.



I think you can't go wrong with it. If you want an introduction to poetry and to learn about who to read, this is something very good to use - and even if you just want to dip in to the best, this is the book I personally recommend. Great stuff.

This is an amazing book - it single handedly taught me to understand poetry better for the first time in my life. Bloom explains what is important about each author/their perspective and their place in time as relates to their work. The only poets I really had experience with before this were Poe and Carroll. Walrus is so very deep - the time has come my friend..to talk of many things - and Poe is just a methodical beat. Now I've encountered some astoundingly great poetry and had this book to guide my experience, I'm a better person for it. If you have never been able to experience how great poetry can sing within your soul, buy this book. I absolutely love it.

These one-thousand-plus pages of poetry offer small snippets from a comprehensive number of authors, just enough to spark the reader's interest into further exploring a particular poet. Indeed, this book has exposed me to authors I had never heard of before, and Bloom's commentary provides a useful background, although it can be a little obscure and idiosyncratic at times. The anthology has the most impact when it includes full poems, such as Eliot's "The Wasteland", which I finally had the opportunity to read. Another plus are the wide margins, essential for much-needed note-taking.



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This collection of the best poetry of the English language is superb. All of the poems were selected by Professor Harold Bloom, and are truly representative of the best poets over the past 400+ years. Professor Bloom provides some historical and literary content to the poets and most of the poems. Also, his introductory essay, "The Art of Reading Poetry," is worth the price of the book alone. This a must-have-book for any reader interested in poetry, and is perfect to sit down with and just kill an hour or two visiting old friends, and meeting new ones.

The poems contained in this volume, as well as their introductions by Bloom, are all top notch. However, I can't help but feel that paying the extra price for the Norton Anthology of Poetry would have been a better choice, as it includes almost everything here as well as much, much more, and is clearly the gold standard for these sorts of poetry collections. On the plus side, Blooms text isn't as cramped as the Norton, and so it has easier to read text and thicker paper for each page, something I find rather important when engaging a poem.

I will be reading this book for the rest of my life, more or less. Of course the poems are well worth reading, and naturally I would never have found many of them by simply trolling through libraries. But the editorial insight and orientation as to where the authors and their works stand in relation to the history of literature and humanistic thought is invaluable. I would have had to acquire several PhD's to develop this understanding on my own. It's a reference book, like the encyclopedia: one doesn't finish it.