THE READING OF POETRY--(_Continued_)
In almost every American household there will be some volume of poetry
through which the young reader can make his entrance into the enchanted
world; there will be a volume of Shakespeare, an old copy of “Paradise
Lost” or the works of Longfellow or Tennyson. In our day a desire to
read is seldom thwarted by lack of books. Indeed, it sometimes seems
as if the very abundance of books made us so familiar with their backs
that we do not value the treasures inside. The biographies of our
grandfathers tell us of walks of five miles to secure some coveted
volume, and a volume so secured was not skimmed or neglected; the
effort to get it made it doubly precious.
If one is left to choose the door through which to enter the realm of
poetry, a good anthology will prove a broad approach. There is none
better than Palgrave’s “Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics.” It is
inexpensive, so that anyone can save enough pennies to buy it. It is
convenient to carry in one’s pocket, a virtue that makes it preferable
to larger anthologies, to those old-fashioned “household collections”
printed in double columns. If all our men and boys had the “Golden
Treasury” in their coat pockets, what a civilization we should have at
the end of ten years! In order to keep up with us the ladies would have
to provide pockets in their dresses or carry more spacious handbags
than the tyranny of style now permits.
The selections in Palgrave or in the four volumes of Ward’s “English
Poets,” are so rich and varied that no reader can fail to find his own
poet, and the next step will be to get a larger selection from that
poet’s works. All the English poets have been published in inexpensive
volumes of selections, many of them in the same _Golden Treasury
Series_; and as poets, like other human beings, are not always at their
best, an edition which contains only the best will save the reader
from the unfortunate experience of meeting a poet for the first time
in his inferior work. When we have learned really to like a poet, we
shall wish to have his complete works, but for the young reader most
modern poets are better for the suppression of their less admirable
passages. Only three or four--Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, our
greatest poets--wrote long poems which to be enjoyed at their fullest
must be read entire. Although it is true that poetry consists of great
lines and that a collection of short poems and passages will be enough
to nourish the soul for its whole earthly life, yet supreme poetry is
built on a mighty plan. Brief lyrics and bits of song are like jewels,
precious, complete, beautiful. Great poems, epics and dramas, are
like cathedrals in which the jewels are set in the walls and in the
windows. One might read all the fine passages from Shakespeare and yet
not feel Shakespeare’s highest, that is, his entire, poetic power.
For the marvelous speeches and songs, however satisfying in themselves,
lose some of their meaning when taken out of the structure of which
they are a part. The stained glass window is beautiful in the artist’s
studio, but when it is set in the church and the light falls through
it, it becomes part of a beauty greater than its own. So, too,
“Macbeth” is greater than Shakespeare’s lyrics, “Paradise Lost” is
greater than all of Milton’s short poems taken together. The true
reader of poetry will pass beyond the delight of the perfect stanza to
the wider joy of the complete drama, the complete epic.
In approaching a long poem, the modern impatient reader is discouraged
sometimes by the number of pages of solid verse which follow those
first pages into which he has plunged. It is well to remember that in
reading poetry, a little traveling of the eye takes the imagination
on long journeys, and that imagination will join for us the first
page and the last even if we have spent six months in making the
intervening journey. “Hamlet” need not be read in a day. If one reads
a few lines at a time one will soon be in the depths of it, and there
is no danger of losing one’s way. We can spend a month in the first
perusal or we can run rapidly through it in the three hours which it
is supposed to occupy on the stage. We can go backward and forward
in it, pause as long as we will on a single speech, or fly swiftly
upon the wings of the action. The sense of leisure, of independence of
hourly circumstance, is one of the spiritual uses of poetry. The poet
and our own nature will determine the time for us. When we follow the
pageant of Shakespeare’s sad histories of the death of kings, we shall
not, I hope, comport ourselves like tourists hurrying through a picture
gallery in order that we may have “done” it before our train goes. We
shall not be so misguided as to plume ourselves when we enter in our
diary: “Read two plays of Shakespeare this week.” Reading that consists
merely in passing the eye over the page is not reading at all. When we
become conscious of turning pages without any inward response, it is
time to lay the book down and do something else. When we are really
reading, we shall not be conscious of the book and we shall not know
how many pages we have read--until we wake up out of dreamland and come
back into our own world.
Two or three plays of Shakespeare are being read every year in every
high school in America. It is a common experience of teachers that
the pupils regard Shakespeare’s plays as the hardest part of the
prescribed reading. One reason is that these dramatic poems are through
a regrettable necessity made the text of lessons in language. The
atmosphere of study and duty surrounding “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”
in the classroom takes the charm out of that fairy play. This is not
the fault of the teachers and it is not for us to criticise them; the
wisest leaders in education have not found a way to make the study of
Shakespeare in school less laborious than it is. And many of them think
that it is well that lessons should be hard nuts to crack, that the
young mind is better disciplined if its schoolday tasks are not made
too delightful and easy. Some teachers believe that the old-fashioned
hard digging at books is being in too large a measure replaced by
kindergarten methods, which are so unadvisedly extended that even a
geometry lesson is treated as a game.
For the present we will keep our consideration of the uses and
delights of reading apart from the problems of the schools, and regard
Shakespeare as we regard Scott--a friend to enjoy in leisure hours. I
should advise, then, that pupils who are reading Shakespeare in school
select other plays than those prescribed in class and come to them as
to a novel chosen for pleasure. If the class work requires a study of
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” let the young reader try “The Tempest” by
himself. If “Julius Cæsar” is a part of the winter’s school task, let
us in vacation time slip “Macbeth” or “Henry V” into our pockets. And
while our friends in the other hammock are reading a romance of the
hour, let us be reading a romance of the ages. When we are tired of
reading and are ready to play that game of tennis, our opponent, who
has been reading a book that he bought on the newsstand at the railroad
station, will not necessarily beat us, because we know what he does not
know, that a gift of tennis balls comes into the plot of “Henry V.”
The Dauphin of France sends Henry the tennis balls for a mocking gift,
and Henry answers:
When we have matched our rackets to these balls,
We will, in France, by God’s grace, play a set
Shall strike his father’s crown into the hazard.
Tell him he hath made a match with such a wrangler
That all the courts of France will be disturbed
With chaces.
That has a spirit which your friend will not find in the excellent
story of a school game which he has been reading, “How Ralph Saved the
Day.”
The great poems receive us on any good ground of interest which we
choose to tread. Would you have a romantic novel? Shakespeare provides
that in “As You Like It” and “Twelfth Night.” Or a military adventure?
There is “Henry Fifth.” Or a love tragedy? There is “Romeo and Juliet.”
These satisfy our primitive liking for a good story. And so in some
measure do all great poems, for the great poems are epics and dramas,
that is, stories in verse. Literature finds its best structural
material in action and event, and language is best suited to the
expression of actions, perhaps because it has been made by a world of
workers and doers. The most effective means of conveying abstract ideas
is through story. The most moving sections of the Bible are narrative,
the greatest lessons are taught in parables and instances. “Paradise
Lost” is a narrative of great vigor, for all the dull debates and
arguments; and if it was not Milton’s primary intention to tell a great
story for its own sake, nevertheless he did tell a great story and we
can enjoy it for its own sake long before we have begun, and long after
we have ceased, to be interested in his theology and philosophy.
To say that great poets, Homer, Vergil, Dante, Spenser, Shakespeare,
are romancers as truly as are the writers of prose novels is not to
belittle poetry. The highest thoughts can be conveyed in a story. When
a great poetic story-teller ceases for too many lines to be master of
narrative, it will often be found that some other poetic qualities have
for the moment died out of him too. And when he attempts to convey
great ideas with little regard to their place in a moving sequence of
events, he pays the penalty of not being read, he loses hold of the
reader’s interest. The most titanic case of the failure of high poetic
thoughts to win their way to the common heart of man, because of the
disregard of narrative form, is Browning’s “The Ring and the Book.”
There the story, a terrible and touching story, is told over a dozen
times, and not once told well. Imbedded in its strange shapelessness
are wonderful ideas and passages of intense beauty. As a heap of poetry
it is the only production of the Victorian age that has the magnitude
of Shakespeare and the classic epics. Other poems of Browning’s,
“Clive” and “Ivan Ivanovitch,” show that he had narrative gifts. Some
scenes in his dramas are in emotional energy and narrative progression
unrivaled by any poet since Shakespeare. But in “The Ring and the
Book,” into which he put his whole heart, he would not or could not
tell his story as the experience of all ages has shown that stories
must be told: his poem does not move forward in a continuously high and
noble style. And so most of the world of readers are deprived of the
richness with which he freighted from his prodigal mind and great soul
his mighty rudderless ship that goes down in midocean.
Shakespeare told good stories in almost all his plays. He did not
invent the stories, but he selected them from the literature of the
world and from other Elizabethan writers, and then enriched the
narrative with every kind of beauty and significance which it would
hold. On account of their excellence as narratives and their intensely
human and stirring materials, the plays of Shakespeare enjoyed some
measure of popularity even in their own time, if the scholars have
rightly informed us; and the plays have continued to hold the stage
and to interest many of the “great variety of readers” who are
addressed in one of the introductions to the first collected edition
of Shakespeare’s works. In our time the influence of the schools has
insured popular acquaintance with Shakespeare as an object of serious
study. On the other hand, the great increase in the quantity of prose
fiction, and the fact that it is easier to read thin prose than rich
poetry, have obscured for many readers the elementary delight of
Shakespeare’s plays as fictitious romances.
One reason that the inexperienced reader regards the reading of
Shakespeare as an unusual operation of eye and brain is that we are
not accustomed to read the drama of our own time; so that we have not
the habit of following naked dialogue accompanied only by a few terse
stage directions. Since Shakespeare’s time our literature has not been
so rich in drama as in other forms. Some of our plays--those that have
succeeded on the stage and those written in conventional dramatic form
without regard to performance on the stage--are worth reading. But the
public does not encourage the printing of them. Many of our writers
shrewdly make double use of their ideas and turn them both into stage
form and into prose fiction. The large number of dramatized novels and
“novelized” dramas--Shakespeare himself dramatized novels--shows that
in England and America we regard the playbook as something for the
actor to learn and represent to us in spoken word and action. In France
the latest play is for sale in the bookshops like the latest novel.
If our stage is to return to high literary standards, there must grow
up in our public an audience of intelligent playreaders as well as
playgoers. The more intelligently we read plays, the more there will
be worth reading; we can help the stage to attain and hold a better
level of excellence by demanding of it that its productions shall be
“literary,” that is, readable.
That Shakespeare is the single dramatist in our language whom we feel
we ought to read is regrettable. It sets him apart in a solitude which
is as artificial in its way as the attempt of some critics to group
him in a “school of playwrights.” He is solitary in greatness, quite
lonely among his many contemporaries[1] in drama, but the form he used,
narrative dialogue, ought to be as familiar to us as the novel. If ten
people read “The Vicar of Wakefield” to one that reads “She Stoops
to Conquer,” the reason is not that “The Vicar” is better work, but
that the printed play looks strange to the eyes of our reading public.
Plato put his philosophy in dramatic dialogue, apparently with the
intention of choosing a popular and readable form. And the author of
the Shakespearian drama seems to have felt that he had chosen the most
popular and practical vehicle of ideas. Perhaps, if he had known to
what a low condition Puritan prejudice, the social weaknesses of stage
life and other causes were to bring dramatic literature, he might have
turned his narrative genius into other than dramatic form.
That we are not readers of plays is no special fault of this age. A
hundred years ago Charles and Mary Lamb found a wide audience for their
“Tales from Shakespeare.” The publisher announced in the second edition
that the “Tales,” intended primarily for children, had been found “an
acceptable and improving present to young ladies advancing to the
state of womanhood.” If Shakespeare was to be retold for the young, it
was fortunate that Charles Lamb was selected as the emissary from the
land of poetry to those who had never made the great adventure beyond
the confines of prose. Yet it is hard to believe that Lamb’s “Tales”
are necessary to any but lovers of Lamb. There is a danger that the
young reader, for whom he designed the book as a door to Shakespeare,
will linger in the vestibule, content with the genuine riches that
are there, and will not go on to the greater riches of Shakespeare
himself. Shakespeare told the stories better than another can tell
them, and anyone who knows enough of the English language to read
Lamb’s “Tales” will find Shakespeare’s plays intelligible to read, just
as when performed on the stage they are intelligible to the people in
the gallery, even to those in the boxes. Repeated readings with some
reference to simple explanatory notes will make the deep meanings and
fine beauties ever more and more clear.
The plays which a beginner should read are, “A Midsummer Night’s
Dream,” “The Merchant of Venice,” “As You Like It,” “Twelfth Night,”
“The Tempest,” “Henry IV,” “Henry V,” “Richard III,” “Romeo and
Juliet,” “Julius Cæsar,” “Hamlet,” “Othello,” “King Lear,” and
“Macbeth.” The other plays and the poems may, for various reasons, be
reserved for the time when one no longer needs advice about reading.
We shall have gained much of the freedom of soul which is the necessary
condition of reading poetry, if we make a New Year’s resolution not
to be frightened away from the real mysteries of Shakespeare by the
false mysteries of his editors and critics.[2] Shakespeare speaks
our language, but the scholars speak a language which they invented,
as if they intended to hold their authority by wrapping themselves in
impenetrable obscurities which common folk would not try to master.
Let us not be deceived. “The Tempest” was not written for university
professors. Let us open it with the same confident curiosity that we
should bring to “Robinson Crusoe” or “Ivanhoe.”
And after you have read “The Tempest,” what do you remember to have
found difficult? Is it not clearer than daylight, that enchanted
island where Prospero, the exiled duke, has lived twelve years with
his daughter Miranda? Is it not a simple and sweet romance that Prince
Ferdinand should be wrecked on the island and should fall in love with
Miranda and that she should fall in love with him, the first man she
has seen except her father? Is it not clear that Prospero, a student
of magic, has gained control of the spirits of the island and has
his blithe servant, Ariel, and his brutal servant, Caliban? Did you
find any difficulty in understanding that when the wicked brother,
who cheated Prospero of his dukedom, is cast ashore upon the island,
Prospero pardons him and gets his dukedom back? What is obscure in this
wonder tale? “Cinderella” and “The Sleeping Beauty” are made of the
same stuff, and we hear them at our mothers’ knees before we are able
to read at all.
But there is more in “The Tempest” than a childish fairy tale. Yes,
much more, but that more is insinuated into the story, it is
embroidered upon it, it comes to us without effort of ours, for the
poet is a Prospero and teaches us, as Prospero taught Miranda, by
art and nature and not by laborious counsel. You will feel as you
follow the fairy story that the spirit of nature has stolen over you
unawares, that Caliban represents the evil in the natural world and
Ariel the good, and that both are obedient to the bidding of man’s
intelligence. So much philosophy will come to you of itself; it is not
a dull lesson to knit your brows over; you need seek no lecturer to
expound it to you. A song of Ariel will linger in your ear. All that
is required of you is that your senses be wide awake and that your
fancy be free from bookish anxiety and ready to be played upon. The
miracle will be wrought for you. You need only sit, like Ferdinand, and
watch the masque which the wizard evokes--“a most majestic vision, and
harmoniously charming.” There will remain with you some speech, grave
with philosophy and luminous with imagery, such as this:
These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
[Illustration: TENNYSON]
It is better, perhaps, to read the comedies and histories before the
tragedies. The comedies and histories are simpler in motive, and
through lighter thoughts give one the feeling for Shakespeare’s diction
and prepare one to enter the tragedies that treat of higher matters. It
is because tragedy is concerned with greater ideas, not because it ends
unhappily, that it is greater poetry than comedy. It deals with more
important motives and more serious events, and its thought is complete;
the career of Hamlet, or of Macbeth, is finished, and the ideas of life
that informed the career and shaped the events are carried out to their
fullest. Tragedy does not consist in the piling up of corpses in the
last act; the end of the characters is nothing in itself. Shakespeare
always rounds off the conclusion with rapid strokes; having done with
the ideas and motives that lead to the end he has little interest in
the mere death of his characters. It is the “way to dusty death” that
interests him and us and makes the tragedy profound. To those readers
referred to in a previous chapter, who do not like sad endings, we can
now give another answer. They put too much thought upon the ending and
too little upon the story that leads to the end. Whoever does not like
tragedy does not like serious ideas, and whoever does not read tragedy
does not read the greatest poetry. For the greatest poetry must consist
of the most important ideas. Not only upon beauty of form and magic of
phrase, but on the heart, the content, depends the greatness of a poem.
LIST OF BOOKS OF POETRY
(_Supplementary to Chapter VI_)
COLLECTIONS AND ANTHOLOGIES OF POETRY
_The English Poets_, edited by T. H. WARD, and published by Macmillan,
in four volumes, at $1 each.
On the whole, the most satisfactory collection of English poetry.
Each of the chief poets is represented by several selections, and the
introductory criticisms are in themselves a liberal education.
_Little Masterpieces of Poetry_, edited by HENRY VAN DYKE, in six
volumes, and published by Doubleday, Page & Co.
The poems are divided according to form; one volume containing ballads;
another, odes and sonnets; another, lyrics; and so on. This is a
rational, but not a practical, principle of division, for it is better
to have the selections, say, from Keats, together in one’s anthology
than to have his sonnets in one volume and his lyrics in another. A
poet and his poetry are very definite units, but the lines between
lyrics and ballads and odes are not sharp and, on the whole, not
important.
_Lyra Heroica_, edited by WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY, and published by
Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Called “a book of verse for boys”; really a book of verse for
everybody, consisting of the martial, the heroic, the patriotic, from
the old English ballads to Rudyard Kipling.
_A Victorian Anthology_, edited by EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN, and
published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
A remarkably adequate collection of English poems of the last seventy
years.
_An American Anthology_, edited by EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN, and
published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
Not only a wise selection of the best American poetry, but a complete
survey of the poetic utterance of this country, from a biographical and
historical point of view.
_The Golden Treasury_, edited by FRANCIS TURNER PALGRAVE, and
published by Macmillan (see page 109 of this Guide).
_The Golden Treasury_, second series, edited by FRANCIS TURNER
PALGRAVE.
This continues the first _Golden Treasury_ and includes the Victorian
poets. It is not so complete as Stedman’s _Anthology_, but costs only
half as much.
_The Children’s Treasury of Lyrical Poetry_, edited by FRANCIS TURNER
PALGRAVE.
_The Children’s Garland from the Best Poets_, edited by COVENTRY
PATMORE.
The two foregoing are in the _Golden Treasury Series_, and published by
Macmillan.
_Elizabethan Lyrics_, edited by FELIX E. SCHELLING.
An inexpensive collection, published by Ginn & Co., covering the same
period as is covered by about one sixth of the _Golden Treasury_, but
in larger type and so pleasanter to read.
_Seventeenth Century Lyrics_, edited by FELIX E. SCHELLING.
Continues the volume mentioned above.
_The Blue Poetry Book_, edited by ANDREW LANG.
A good collection of verse intended by the editor for young people, and
selected by him wisely, but quite whimsically, from poets he happens to
like.
_Golden Numbers_, edited by KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN AND NORA ARCHIBALD
SMITH.
An excellent anthology intended for youth.
_Oxford Book of English Verse_, edited by ARTHUR T. QUILLER-COUCH.
A handsome book which represents, in less degree than most anthologies,
the traditional standards of excellence or traditionally excellent
poets, and in rather greater degree the fine taste of the editor for
the best.
_English and Scottish Popular Ballads_, edited by FRANCIS JAMES CHILD.
This is a selection in a single volume from the great edition of the
ballads by Professor Child. It is equally for the student and the
reader. In the _Cambridge Poets_, published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
_Specimens of English Dramatic Poets_, edited by CHARLES LAMB.
Passages that pleased Lamb in the works of Shakespeare’s
contemporaries. Interesting to a reader of Elizabethan drama and to a
reader of Lamb.
INDIVIDUAL POETS
ÆSCHYLUS (525-456 B.C.). _Lyrical Dramas._ In _Everyman’s Library_.
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH (1836-1907). _Poems._
Household Edition. Aldrich was a careful editor of his own work and
this volume is complete in its inclusions and its omissions. It is one
of the few volumes of American poetry worth owning.
ARISTOPHANES (about 450-380 B.C.). _Comedies._
In two volumes of _Bohn’s Library_, translated by W. J. Hickie.
MATTHEW ARNOLD (1822-88). _Poetical Works._
The Globe Edition, published by Macmillan, which costs $1.75, is the
best. Most of the chief British poets can be had in this edition.
The Cambridge Edition, published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., costs a
little more the volume, but it is preferable on the whole in point of
manufacture and readability. The young reader of Arnold may begin with
the narrative poem, “Sohrab and Rustum.”
FRANCIS BEAUMONT (158?-1616). _Dramatic Works._
The best selection of the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher is the two
volumes, edited by J. St. Loe Strachey in the _Mermaid Series_,
published by Charles Scribner’s Sons. In this series are, in the words
of the title page, “The Best Plays of the Old Dramatists.” A taste
for Elizabethan drama is as well left undeveloped until after a fair
acquaintance has been formed with the plays of Shakespeare.
WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827). _Songs of Innocence._ _Songs of Experience._
There are several collections of Blake’s lyrics in single-volume
editions. A good one is that with an introductory essay by Lawrence
Housman. Blake’s lyrics of children and his “Tiger, Tiger, Burning
Bright” will be found in many of the anthologies.
THOMAS EDWARD BROWN (1830-97). _Collected Poems._
A remarkable English poet, but little known to the general public until
the posthumous publication of his work in 1900 by Macmillan & Co., in
the single-volume Globe Edition, which contains the works of Shelley,
Tennyson, and other great poets; Brown is worthy of that distinguished
company.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING (1809-61). _Poetical Works._
In one volume, in Macmillan’s Globe Edition. “The Sonnets from the
Portuguese” are to be found in a small volume by themselves. They are
the best of Mrs. Browning’s work. The new reader of Mrs. Browning
should begin after page 150 in the Macmillan edition and read only the
shorter poems.
ROBERT BROWNING (1812-89). _Complete Poetic and Dramatic Works._
The Cambridge Edition is the best, in one volume. The Globe Edition is
in two volumes. The two volumes in _Everyman’s Library_ contain all of
Browning’s poems written up to 1864. A good volume for the young reader
is “The Boys’ Browning,” which contains poems of action and incident.
An inexpensive volume, published by Smith, Elder & Co., called “The
Brownings for the Young,” contains a good variety of Browning, with
some selections from Mrs. Browning.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT (1794-1878). _Poetical Works._
The poems of Bryant are published in one volume by D. Appleton & Co.
Bryant’s translations of the “Iliad” and the “Odyssey” are better than
most poetic versions of Homer in simplicity and dignity. The young
reader cannot do better than to meet Homer in Bryant before he learns
Greek enough to meet Homer himself.
ROBERT BURNS (1759-96). _Poems, Songs, and Letters._
The complete work of Burns in the Globe Edition (Macmillan).
GEORGE GORDON NOEL BYRON (1788-1824). _Poetry of Byron._
A selection by Matthew Arnold in the _Golden Treasury Series_.
CHARLES STUART CALVERLEY (1831-84). _Fly Leaves._
A taste for refined parody indicates the possession of a critical
sense. Coarse parody which implies no intimate knowledge of the poet
parodied is not worth while. The reader who appreciates Calverley’s
delicious verses will have learned to appreciate the serious modern
poets. Other writers of humorous verse, including parodies which are
delicate and witty, are J. K. Stephen, Mr. Owen Seaman, Henry Cuyler
Bunner.
THOMAS CAMPBELL (1777-1844).
Enough of Campbell will be found in Ward’s Poets.
GEORGE CHAPMAN (1559-1634). _Dramas._
One volume in the _Mermaid Series_. (See pages 243-8 of this Guide.)
GEOFFREY CHAUCER (1340-1400). _Canterbury Tales._
A volume in _Everyman’s Library_ contains eighteen of the tales,
slightly simplified in spelling and vocabulary, said to be the first
successful attempt to modernize Chaucer, for the benefit of the
ordinary reader, without destroying the essential quality of the
original. But with the glossary and notes found in “The Student’s
Chaucer,” edited by W. W. Skeat, the lover of poetry will find himself
able to read Chaucer in the original form without great difficulty.
ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH (1819-61). _Poems._
In the _Golden Treasury Series_. Readers of poetry who have not met
Clough have an entirely new poetical experience before them in “The
Bothie,” a narrative poem. It should be tried after Longfellow’s
“Miles Standish” and “Evangeline.” Clough was not among the greatest
Victorian poets, but there is room for him in an age like ours which is
said, whether justly or not, to be lacking in poetic voices. In this
connection readers may turn to Clough’s poem, “Come, Poet Come!” (see
page 107 of this Guide).
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE (1772-1834). _Poetical Works._
In the Globe Edition. The single volume in _Everyman’s Library_ is
adequate.
WILLIAM COWPER (1731-1800). _Poetical Works._
In the Globe Edition.
DANTE ALIGHIERI (1265-1321). _Divina Commedia._
Cary’s translation is in _Everyman’s Library_. The best way on the
whole for English readers to learn their Dante is through Charles
Eliot Norton’s prose translation (see page 210 of this Guide).
THOMAS DEKKER (157?-163?). _Dramas._
In the _Mermaid Series_.
JOHN DONNE (1573-1631). _Poems._
In the _Muses Library_ (Charles Scribner’s Sons). A wonderful poet,
who, perhaps, is not to be read until one’s taste for poetry has grown
certain, but a liking for whom in mature years is an almost infallible
proof of true poetic appreciation.
JOHN DRYDEN (1631-1700). _Poetical Works._
In the Globe Edition and also in the Cambridge Edition. The reader
should first read Dryden’s odes and lyrical pieces; his satires may be
deferred.
GEORGE ELIOT (Mary Ann Evans, 1819-80). _Poems._
In one volume, published by Doubleday, Page & Co., and to be found in
any complete edition of her works. Her reputation as a novelist has
overshadowed her excellence as a poet. “The Choir Invisible” is one of
the noble poems of the century.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON (1803-82). _Poems._
In one volume, published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Emerson is the most
exalted spirit of our literature, and his poems condense and refine the
best ideas to be found in his prose.
EURIPIDES (480-406 B.C.). _Dramas._
In two volumes in _Everyman’s Library_.
_Everyman and Other Miracle Plays._
In _Everyman’s Library_. See also “Specimens of Pre-Shakespearean
Drama,” edited by J. M. Manly (Ginn & Co.). The recent stage production
of “Everyman” has created a new popular interest in very early
English dramas. The value of most of them is historical rather than
intrinsically poetic.
EUGENE FIELD. _A Little Book of Western Verse._
Contains the familiar poems for and about children.
EDWARD FITZGERALD (1809-83). _Translation of the Rubáiyát of Omar
Khayyám._
There are innumerable editions of this famous poem. An inexpensive one
is published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
JOHN FLETCHER (1579-1625). _Dramas._
With Beaumont in the _Mermaid Series_.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE (1749-1832). _Dramatic and Poetic Works._
The dramas, translated by Walter Scott and others, are in _Bohn’s
Library_. American readers will be interested in Bayard Taylor’s poetic
version of “Faust.”
OLIVER GOLDSMITH (1728-74). _Poems, etc._
Goldsmith’s few poems are to be found in a good edition of his works in
one volume, published by Crowell & Co.
THOMAS GRAY (1716-71). _Poetical Works._
In one volume, in the Aldine Edition (Macmillan). Readers of the
familiar “Elegy in a Country Churchyard” need only to be told that a
half dozen of Gray’s other poems are equally fine; and they should not
overlook the delightful “Ode on the Death of Mr. Walpole’s Cat.”
KATE GREENAWAY. _Marigold Garden._ _Under the Window._
Miss Greenaway’s delightful pictures of children would entitle her to a
place among the poets, even if she had not done the little rhymes that
go with her drawings.
FRANCIS BRET HARTE (1839-1902). _Poetical Works._
In one volume, published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
HEINRICH HEINE (1797-1856). _Poems._
Heine’s lyrics have tempted the talents of many translators. The finest
collection of verses from Heine in English is that by Emma Lazarus,
herself a true poet.
WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY. _Poems._
Henley’s one volume of poems, a slender volume, published by Scribner,
places him high among the secondary poets of nineteenth century England.
GEORGE HERBERT (1593-1633). _Poems._
Herbert’s poems with his “Life” by Izaak Walton, are published by
Walter Scott, in one volume in the _Canterbury Poets_, and also, in a
single volume, by Crowell & Co. Herbert is the finest of the religious
lyric poets of the seventeenth century.
ROBERT HERRICK (1591-1674). _Poems._
A fine selection, with an introduction by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, is
published in one volume by the Century Co. Herrick is to be found also
in the _Canterbury Poets_, in one volume, and in _Morley’s Universal
Library_, published by George Rutledge & Sons.
THOMAS HEYWOOD (158?-164?). _Dramatic Works._
In the _Mermaid Series_.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES (1809-94). _Complete Poetical Works._
In the Cambridge Edition.
HOMER. _The Iliad._ _The Odyssey._
See pages 211-12 of this Guide.
THOMAS HOOD (1799-1845). _Poems._
Hood’s humorous poems are found in a pleasantly illustrated volume,
published by Macmillan. His serious poems, “Eugene Aram,” “The Bridge
of Sighs,” “The Song of the Shirt,” are well known, and are in many
anthologies.
HORACE. _Odes, Epodes, Satires, and Epistles._
Selected translations from the best English poets and scholars in one
volume of the _Chandos Classics_, published by Frederick Warne & Co.
[Illustration: LONGFELLOW]
BEN JONSON (1573-1637). _Plays._
In the _Mermaid Series_. Jonson’s fine lyrics, including the perfect
song “Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes,” should be looked for in the
anthologies.
JOHN KEATS (1795-1821). _Poems._
The best edition of Keats is that edited by Buxton Forman. Good
editions are those in _Everyman’s Library_ and in the _Golden Treasury
Series_.
RUDYARD KIPLING. _Barrack-Room Ballads._ _The Seven Seas._
SIDNEY LANIER (1842-81). _Poems._
In one volume, published by Scribner. An inspired poet, if ever one was
born in America.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR (1775-1864). _Poems, Imaginary Conversations,
etc._
A volume of selections from the prose and verse of Landor is to be
found in the _Golden Treasury Series_.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW (1807-82). _Complete Poetical Works._
In the Cambridge Edition. A good selection from Longfellow appears in
the _Golden Treasury Series_.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL (1819-91). _Complete Poetical Works._
In the Cambridge Edition.
MAURICE MAETERLINCK. _Plays._
Translated by Richard Hovey.
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE (1564-93). _Plays._
In the _Mermaid Series_.
GEORGE MEREDITH (1828-1909). _Poems._
Published in one volume by Scribner. Meredith’s poems of nature should
be read first.
JOHN MILTON (1608-74). _Complete Poetical Works._
In the Cambridge Edition and also in the Globe Edition. There are many
texts of Milton prepared for use in schools. The young reader will be
fortunate if he can read and enjoy the shorter poems and two or three
books of “Paradise Lost,” before he comes to the study of them in
school.
MOLIÈRE (Jean Baptiste Poquelin, 1622-73). _Dramatic Works._
There are many English versions of Molière, some prepared for the
stage. The edition in three volumes in _Bohn’s Library_ is practically
complete.
THOMAS MOORE (1779-1852). _Irish Melodies._
The complete poems of Moore are published in an inexpensive volume by
T. Y. Crowell & Co. Moore’s songs are his best work and many of them
retain a sure place in the popular balladry of our race.
WILLIAM MORRIS (1834-96). _The Defence of Guinevere._ _Life and Death
of Jason._
The great fluency of Morris’s poetry makes his longer narratives
remarkably easy to read. Although he is a poet known and cherished by
the few, his stories in verse are singularly well adapted to young
readers.
EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809-49). _Complete Poetical Works._
The best edition is that edited by Stedman and Woodberry. There are
several other single-volume editions. The dozen best poems of Poe
should be known to every young American, and Mr. Andrew Lang is right
in saying (preface to the “Blue Poetry Book”) that the youngest ear
will be delighted by the beauty of the words.
ALEXANDER POPE (1688-1744). _Complete Poetical Works._
In the Cambridge Edition. A century that began with Keats and Shelley
and ended with Swinburne and Meredith does not accord Pope the high
place he enjoyed in his own century, but places him at best among the
most brilliant of the comic poets. The “Rape of the Lock” is a humorous
masterpiece. A surprisingly good anthology of Pope is the section
given to him in Bartlett’s “Familiar Quotations”; the large number
of lines from his work is sure proof of his place in our literature;
only Shakespeare, Milton, and the Bible contribute so much that is
“familiar.”
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY. _Old-Fashioned Roses._
A natural and joyous singer about common things, deservedly popular in
America and a truer poet than many critics suspect.
CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI (1830-94). _Poems._
Published in one volume by Little, Brown & Co. Among English women only
Mrs. Browning is so fine a poet as Christina Rossetti.
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI (1828-82). _Complete Poetical Works._
In two volumes, published by Little, Brown & Co. The young reader
should begin with Rossetti’s songs, ballads, and simpler poems, “The
Blessed Damosel” and “My Sister’s Sleep.” The sonnet sequence, “The
House of Life,” is for mature readers.
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER (1759-1805). _Dramatic Works
and Poems._
In several volumes of _Bohn’s Library_, translated by Coleridge and
others.
WALTER SCOTT (1771-1832). _Complete Poetical Works._
In the Cambridge Edition. Scott’s narrative poems are preëminently
adapted to the taste and understanding of young readers. There are many
school editions of Scott’s poetry, and innumerable reprints attest his
continued popularity.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
The best one-volume edition of Shakespeare is the Cambridge Edition.
The best edition in many volumes is the Cambridge Shakespeare,
published by Macmillan & Co. It gives the readings of the Elizabethan
texts so that the reader can distinguish (and accept or reject)
the emendations of scholars. A pocket edition such as the Temple
(Macmillan), or the Ariel (Putnam), will prove a good friend.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (1792-1822). _Complete Poetical Works._
In the Cambridge Edition or the Globe. In two volumes in _Everyman’s
Library_. Selected poems in the _Golden Treasury Series_.
PHILIP SIDNEY (1554-86). _Lyric Poems._
In a small attractive volume, published by Macmillan.
SOPHOCLES (495-406 B.C.) _Plays._
In the English translation of R. C. Jebb. The volume in _Everyman’s
Library_ contains translations by Young. Professor G. H. Palmer’s
“Antigone” is as remarkable as his “Odyssey.”
ROBERT SOUTHEY (1774-1843). _Poems._
Selected poems in the _Golden Treasury Series_.
EDMUND SPENSER (1552-99). _Complete Poems._
In the Globe Edition. Called the poet’s poet; a source of inspiration
to other poets. If we do not read “The Faerie Queene” at length, it is
because we have so many poets since Spenser. Yet if the reader had only
Spenser he would have an inexhaustible river of English poetry.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON (1849-94). _A Child’s Garden of Verses._
Published by Scribner, in one volume, which contains Stevenson’s
other verse. “The Child’s Garden” celebrates childhood in a way that
touches the grown imagination, like the poems about children by Blake,
Swinburne, and Francis Thompson, but it appeals also to children of all
ages.
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE (1837-1909). _Selected Poems._
Edited by R. H. Stoddard and published by Crowell. The young reader
should approach Swinburne first in “Atalanta,” poems about children,
poems about other poets, and poems of liberty, notably “The Litany of
Nations.” He is a noble poet, frequently misrepresented by friendly and
unfriendly wafters of current literary opinion.
JOHN B. TABB. _Poems._
In two or three small volumes, published by Small, Maynard & Co. The
purest note among living American poets.
ALFRED TENNYSON (1809-92). _Poetic and Dramatic Works._
Complete in one volume in the Cambridge Edition and also in the Globe.
Of all modern poets preëminently the one for young and old readers to
know entire (with the possible exception of his dramas).
THEOCRITUS. _Idylls._
In English prose, together with translations from Bion and Moschus, by
Andrew Lang, in the _Golden Treasury Series_. Theocritus is translated
into excellent English verse by the poet, C. S. Calverley.
JAMES THOMSON (1700-48). _The Castle of Indolence._ _The Seasons._
Dimmed but not displaced by later poets of nature. Thomson may be read
first in the anthologies, from which now and again a sincere admirer
will be sent to his complete works.
JAMES THOMSON (1834-82). _The City of Dreadful Night._
A remarkable poet, easily among those whom we think of as next to the
greatest poets. Professor William James calls “The City of Dreadful
Night” “that pathetic book,” “which I think is less well known than it
should be for its literary beauty, simply because men are afraid to
quote its words--they are so gloomy, and at the same time so sincere.”
FRANCIS THOMPSON (1859-1907). _The Hound of Heaven._
This poet, lately dead, has surely taken his place among the true
voices of English poetry.
HENRY VAUGHAN (1622-95). _Poems._
In the Aldine Edition (Macmillan).
VERGIL (70-19 B.C.). _Eclogues._ _Georgics._ _Æneid._
In Conington’s prose translation. The poetic version of William Morris
is spirited and fluent.
JOHN WEBSTER (lived in the Elizabethan age). _Dramas._
In the _Mermaid Series_.
WALT WHITMAN (1819-92). _Leaves of Grass._
Whitman’s poetry is complete in one volume, published by Small, Maynard
& Co. The most powerful of American poets. The young reader should
begin with the patriotic pieces and the poems of nature in the sections
entitled “Sea-Drift,” “By the Roadside,” “Drum Taps,” “Memories of
President Lincoln,” “Whispers of Heavenly Death.”
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER (1807-92). _Complete Poetical Works._
In the Cambridge Edition. Widely loved in America for his popular
ballads and songs of common things. In his poems of liberty and in
poems of religious sympathy and faith, the true passion of the poet
overcomes the technical limitations of his verse and results in pure
poetry.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770-1850). _Complete Poetical Works._
In the Globe Edition. The true Wordsworthian believes with Robert
Southey that “a greater poet than Wordsworth there never has been
nor ever will be.” A serene voice that swelled increasingly through
a troubled century, and is more and more felt to have uttered the
essential ideas needed in these hundred years. Yet much of Wordsworth
is less than poetic, and the new reader should seek him first in the
selections edited by Matthew Arnold in the _Golden Treasury Series_.
[Illustration: WORDSWORTH]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See page 56.
[2] See pages 251-4.