Favorite Poems (Dover Thrift Editions)

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Summary: Book & tape ... what better way to LISTEN to poetry
Review: Affliction of Margaret; Anecdote for Fathers; Character of the Happy Warrior; Composed upon Westminster Bridge; Elegiac Stanzas; Expostulation and Reply; Extempore Effusion upon the Death of James Hogg; Idiot Boy; In London; Inside of King's College Chapel, Cambridge; I Travelled Among Unknown Men; I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud; Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey; Lines Written in Early Spring; London, 1802; Lucy Gray; Mutability; My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold; November 1806; Nuns Fret Not; Nutting; Ode Intimations of Immortality; Ode to Duty; On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic; Pet-Lamb; Resolution and Independence; Scorn Not the Sonnet; She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways; She Was a Phantom Delight; Simon Lee; Slumber Did My Spirit Seal; Solitary Reaper; Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known; Thought of a Briton on the Subjugation of Switzerland; Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower; To Sleep; To Toussaint L'Ouverture; We Are Seven; World is Too Much With Us.

Rating:
Summary: Book & tape ... what better way to LISTEN to poetry
Review: I was never much of a reader of poetry, until I discovered poetry on audio cassette. Hearing it spoken gives life to the written word. It's like watching and listening to Shakespeare rather than reading it ... the rhythm of the words come alive! It's how great poetry is meant to be appreciated.

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Summary: Review from a California High school student
Review: Plenty of literary works to refer to. Great index. Great book for thrift shopping.

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Summary: Wordsworth's Greatest Period, 1798-1806 - Dover Edition
Review: The remarkable English Romantic Poets - William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, and John Keats - remain among the favorite poets in the English language. This litte Dover edition, titled Favorite Poems, is a good introduction to much of Wordsworth's greatest poetry.

Wordworth's poetry is quite accessible to the modern reader. There is no need for extensive familiarity with Greek and Roman mythology, nor for knowledge of archaic poetic terms. Footnotes and a glossary are not required.

I have read these 39 poems comprising the Dover collection three or four times over the last few years. With each reading I find Wordsworth's questioning of man's relationship to nature and "what man has made of man" to be as relevant today as it was two centuries ago.

My favorites in this collection include:

Composed Upon Westminister Bridge Sept. 3, 1802 - Elegiac Stanzas - I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud - In London, September 1802 - Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey - Lines Written in Early Spring - London, 1802 - Mutability - My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold - Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent's Narrow Room - Nutting - Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood - On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic - Resolution and Independence - Scorn Not the Sonnet - She Dwelt Along the Untrodden Ways - The World is Too Much with Us, Late and Soon.

The other poems in this collection are:

The Affliction of Margaret - Anecdote for Fathers - Character of the Happy Warrior - Expostulation and Reply - Extempore Effusion upon the Death of James Hogg - I Traveled Among Unknown Men - The Idiot Boy - Inside of King's College Chapel, Cambridge - Lucy Gray - November 1806 - Ode to Duty - The Pet Lamb - She Was a Phantom of Delight - A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal - The Solitary Reaper - Strange Fits of Passion I Have Known - Thought of a Briton on the Subjugation of Switzerland - Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower - To Sleep - To Toussaint L'Ouverture - We Are Seven.

For the reader looking for a more extensive collection of Wordsworth's poetry, explanatory notes, and some poetic criticism, I recommend the hardbound Everyman's Library "Selected Poems", edited by Damian Davies. ISBN 1-85715-245-X