The Oxford Book of English Verse (ISBN 0192141821)

Amazon.com Review:
Let's get one thing straight. Christopher Ricks's 1999 version of The Oxford Book of English Verse contains some of the finest poetry the world has ever seen. Judiciously selected and beautifully produced, this anthology will reward both poetry virgins and over-versed roués with its canny, sometimes inspired conjoining of the familiar and the obscure. (It's also the first edition to let dramatic verse through the gate, meaning that some of the Bard's greatest lines have now made the cut.) From the medieval "Sumer is icumen in" through Seamus Heaney's "The Pitchfork," Ricks selects 822 poems from more than 200 writers. Not surprisingly, Shakespeare comes out on top. But Wyatt, Sidney, Jonson, Milton, Pope, Blake, Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Hardy also make strong showings, as do such under-anthologized females as Mary Robinson, Jane Taylor, and Frances Cornford. In addition, the editor includes an assortment of mnemonically irresistible nursery rhymes. Anyone who cares about literature in the English language will want this on their shelf. Yet some of those same devotees may have serious reservations about what Ricks has done with this literary institution. When Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch wrote his preface to the first Oxford Book of English Verse in October 1900, his agenda was quite clear. He had tried to range over the whole field of English Verse from the beginning, or from the Thirteenth Century to this closing year of the Nineteenth, and to choose the best. Nor have I sought in these Islands only, but wheresoever the Muse has followed the tongue which among living tongues she most delights to honour. To bring home and render so great a spoil compendiously has been my capital difficulty. The metaphors of imperial colonialism spoke confusedly as the Muse followed the English tongue throughout the world and the anthologist brought back the rewards it wrought and wreaked. A century later, the project of "English verse" has lost its imperial certainty, and Ricks is no longer interested in exploiting the former colonies for raw material. Instead, he states categorically that his "does not seek to be a book of Anglophone verse, of verse in the English language whatever its provenance." This leads to some anomalies. He takes American verse only through the 1770s, but is happy to include verse from the Republic of Ireland. As for the linguistic products of the pre-independence Commonwealth: "I judged reluctantly that pre-independence poetry had not achieved poetic independence (freedom from diluted fashion), had not given to the world such poetic accomplishments as would constitute a claim to the pages of an anthology of the best in English poetry." Please discuss! Ricks's "English verse," then, is predominantly verse from England, and of a fairly senior variety at that--the juniors here are such golden codgers as Thom Gunn, Derek Walcott, and Seamus Heaney. Ricks admits that "most of us are not good at appreciating the poetry of those appreciably younger than we are." That's a shame, because it denies The Oxford Book of English Verse a role in disseminating the work of the younger generation (and we're talking under 60 here) from a diversity of backgrounds. What he has undoubtedly produced, however, is an invaluable record of the past glories of English poetry, which will continue to inspire both readers and poets--whatever their age, wherever they are. --Alan Stewart

Revised, up-to-date and we are all only a LITTLE bit dumber for it:
Don't worry ... Unkinder souls might regard this book as a travesty of and insult to the brilliant collection originally assembled by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch under the very same name. But not I. No, this book is just fine by me, as far as it goes--not that its 822 works and 662 pages go all that far when compared to the 967 entries and 1172 pages of Quiller-Couch's 1940 edition. Easy come, easy go, say I. And Ricks even manages to cram in an extra 59 years of new material, too! Why, only the other day, I was lamenting stodgy old Quiller-Couch's inexplicable omission of such vital poetic material as "Twinkle, twinkle, little star." I am delighted to see that Amazon's professional reviewers are fully up to the mark in emphasizing Ricks' politically correct limitation of his poetic sources to Britain--as opposed to the imperialist graspings of devious old Quiller-Couch. Why, anyone can see that for all intents and purposes crafty Q made his "Oxford Book of English Verse" a Yankee tome by ceding to such Americans as Dickinson, Emerson, Harte, Poe, Whittier and Whitman a full 12 entries and parts of no less than 18 pages! (No doubt, J. Edgar Hoover, HUAC and the CIA's nefarious predecessors were overjoyed.) ... be happy! A FURTHER COMMENT: Normally, I'd assume that everybody would get the point I am making, but a re-read of the reviews of this book convinces me that I had better be more explicit. Run, do not walk, to your nearest, dusty, retro, low-tech, used bookshop and grasp a copy of any Quiller-Couch edition--however beaten up and dog-eared--to your bosom, there to treasure it forever. You can then put Ricks' edition to its proper use as a doorstop.

Get the older version by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch:
There is something magisterial about much of pre-20th century english verse, and this book contains some of the best. However, it also leaves out much of the best and is hundreds of pages shorter than the Quiller-Couch editions in spite of including new authors and dramatic verse not included in the Quiller-Couch versions. And what Ricks has done is nothing short of shameful, changing a collection of "the best" (according to Quiller-Couch) into a survey - some of which are anything but "the best". The Quiller-Couch versions have the subtitle "1250-1918"; this version includes up to the later 20th century. Besides deleting so much of the old but fine poetry, the main problem in including recent poetry is that most of it is not very good. (There, I've said it!) Obscurity should never be confused with profundity! All editors or anthologists have a reason for including various works. Many recent collections use ridiculous grounds for inclusion like gender, sexual perversion, skin color, year of publication, or political grounds (as if these factors have anything to do with quality!). If that's what you're looking for, then by all means buy these inferior collections chosen by chip-on-their-shoulder editors who feel nothing but disdain for their readers and feel the need to teach us lesser breeds what good taste truly is (anything they say it is can be the only objective criterion - especially if it is offensive, obscure, obscene and politically-correct). I know I'm blaming Rickman for the excesses of others, but he is a representative of their ilk. But if you seek something else in poetry, then give the Quiller-Couch editions a whirl. And read what Quiller-Couch says about his reasons for inclusion in his collection. He said, I "have set my heart on choosing the best". "The best is the best, though a hundred judges have declared it so; nor had it been any feat to search out and insert the second-rate merely because it happened to be recondite." (Hear!,Hear!) Commenting on the modern propensity for disparagement of anything and everything Quiller-Couch wrote, "I am at a loss what to do with a fashion of morose disparagement; of sneering at things long by catholic consent accounted beautiful... . Be it allowed that these present times are dark. Yet what are our poets of use ---what are they for --- if they cannot hearten the crew with auspices of daylight?" "The reader, turning the pages of this book, will find this note of valiancy --- of the old Roman 'virtue' mated with cheerfulness --- dominant throughout, if in many curious moods." Now those are reasons to include works in an anthology - because they are the best, because they inspire, because they are beautiful, because they are virtuous and cheerful - even when their mood is dark! Long live Quiller-Couch! And may you truly find "auspices of daylight" shining through this verse!

Excellent Introduction to 'British' Poetry.:
`The Oxford Book of English Verse', edited by Christopher Ricks is 662 pages of selections from virtually every British subject poet you may think of, plus a whole lot more. The most important aspect of the collection is the qualifier `British' is more accurate than `English', as American, Canadian, Australian, Indian, South African, and other English-speaking poets are not included. The second most important fact is this is not a `best of' collection. It is much more of a sampler of the great broad range of `English' poetry than it is a collection of the best English poems. If it were the latter, the book would potentially be dominated by Shakespeare, Keats, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Yeats, Chaucer, and Spencer. The advantage of this editorial strategy is that we get samples of so many different poets we would otherwise know nothing about. Taking 20th poets born in the 20th century as an example, I only recognize the names of Dylan Thomas, W. H. Auden, and Samuel Beckett. I do not recognize the names of the other 29 British authors included in the collection. This does not mean all known British authors have been indiscriminately included in this collection. Two 20th century British authors, C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien happened to write a fairly sizable amount of poetry, although much of it may have been published posthumously. But, the fact is, neither author was nearly as good a poet as they were scholars of literature and philology or as good as they were writers of fantasy fiction. In contrast, there are three poems from fellow fantasy writer Lewis Carroll. Unfortunately, the space constraints in the book forbid including any longer works, so, Carroll's most famous poem, `The Hunting of the Snark' is not even included in part. Similarly, only a part of T. S. Elliot's most famous poem, `The Hollow Men' is included. Very oddly, the Elliot sample also doesn't include any poems from his `Cats' book. Including Carroll's `Jabberwocky' but not including these seems odd. For being a collection limited to British authors, there is a surprising amount of weight given to the artistic statements of Ezra Pound in the introduction. I bought this book as a source for my search of a GOOD poem about Christmas. It is relatively easy to find syrupy stuff or texts of Christmas Carols, but not so easy to find original sentiments. For that purpose, this book is good, but not as good as it could be. You get the usual index of titles and first lines, but as I found out, many good poems that fit my criteria may not show themselves in the title or first line. An index of key words would have been even better, so I could look for `Christmas' or `Nativity' or the like. If you know nothing of English poetry and wish to take up the subject, this is an excellent collection. Again, it is NOT a `best of' but a sampler to help you locate those poets in whom you may wish to read further. If the Oxford University Press would ever deign to take advice from the likes of me, I would include a bibliography of major works from all the authors quoted herein. Recommended.

A Wonderful Collection of Great Breadth and Scope:
What a wonderful treasure this book is! Certainly one could debate what has been left out and why what is included here was chosen over some other verse, but there is a lot of beauty included here. For me, it is a wonderful place to visit again and again to dip into this and that and to notice things I hadn't seen before. I think that getting focused on what isn't in this collection is to cheat yourself of the beauty that is here. Not every work is to my taste, not every work is even what I think of as good, but the range and scope of works included is really wonderful. There are many works of great beauty and more of great worth. I think it is a fine collection. One of the nice things I have found is that something I didn't at first find attractive opened up to me after repeated visits. The breadth of the music created with our language is stunning to me and has given me a great deal of pleasure. There are 822 works in this collection that are arranged chronologically from the 13th century through the mid 1990s and grouped by poet. There is an index by author, by foreign authors in translation or imitation, and an index of works by first line. This organization makes it very easy to find a work that you might be looking for or to decide where to dip into the pool depending on how you feel at the moment.

Just What I Ordered:
Every family must have The Oxford Book of English Verse. Even if you don't like poetry, let your children and grandchildren decide for themselves. Other than the Bible, the words in this book are perhaps the most influential in the American culture. I bought this book in my school years, and have now purchased it for my grandchildren. From Chaucer to T.S. Eliot, and every influential English-speaking poet in between, this book is the essential starting point, to be followed and expanded by the poetry of the non-English-speaking world. Buy this book. Keep poetry alive.