The Classic Hundred Poems: All-Time Favorites / Edition 2

by William Harmon

Overview

Here in one volume are the top one hundred poems, as determined by a survey of more than 1,000 anthologies—the poems in English most frequently anthologized, the poems with the broadest, most enduring appeal. From Shakespeare to Dickinson to Frost, from sonnets to odes to villanelles, William Harmon's Classic Hundred Poems offers a feast for poetry lovers.

This book updates the first edition by presenting the new top one hundred poems, nineteen of which were not in the first edition. The revised edition is arranged chronologically, and features new commentary and notes on verse form, as well as an index of the poems in order of popularity, notes on words and proper names, and a bibliography for each poet and each poem. A glossary of terms, author index, and index of titles and first lines are also included.

From Keats' "To Autumn," now ranked as the number-one poem in this collection, to George Herbert's "Virtue," in the hundredth spot, every poem is illuminated by Harmon's informative notes. With insights into the historical period in which each poem was written, the verse form used, and connections among poems, this is the ideal introduction to poetry, as well as a treasury for the dedicated reader.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231112598
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	04/13/1998
Edition description:	Second Edition
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	532,565
Product dimensions:	8.80(w) x 6.30(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

William Harmon is the James Gordon Hanes Professor of English at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is the editor of The Top 500 Poems (Columbia), The Oxford Book of American Light Verse, and recent editions of A Handbook to Literature, and the author of several volumes of poetry, including winners of the Lamont Award and the William Carlos Williams Award.

Table of Contents

Preface
Anonymous
Sir Thomas Wyatt
Sir Walter Ralegh
Sir Philip Sidney
Christopher Marlowe
William Shakespeare
John Donne
Ben Jonson
Robert Herrick
George Herbert
Thomas Carew
Edmund Waller
John Milton
Sir John Suckling
Richard Lovelace
Andrew Marvell
Henry Vaughan
Thomas Gray
William Blake
Robert Burns
William Wordsworth
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron
Percy Bysshe Shelley
John Keats
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Edgar Allan Poe
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Robert Browning
Arthur Hugh Clough
Julia Ward Howe
Matthew Arnold
Emily Dickinson
Lewis Carroll
Thomas Hardy
Gerard Manley Hopkins
William Butler Yeats
Ernest Dowson
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Walter de la Mare
Robert Frost
T.S. Elliot
Wilfred Owen
W. H. Auden
Theodore Roethke
Randall Jarrell
Dylan Thomas
Notes on the Poems
Glossary of Technical Terms
Further Reading
The Poems in Order of Popularity
Index of Poets
Index of Titles and First Lines
Acknowledgments

What People are Saying About This

Roy Blount

“What a great idea. . . . First of all it's interesting to see which poems make it, and then . . . you've got all those great poems.”
—Roy Blount, Jr.
— Roy Blount, Jr

Richard Wilbur

It's fascinating to open this book and discover which... poems have been favored over the years.... William Harmon's comments on the poems are just right: bright, brief, and appreciative."

Robert Creeley

The Classic Hundred is fascinating, and I have much enjoyed just turning pages.... [The poems are] charmingly presented by a very perspicacious host and poet, William Harmon.

Editorial Reviews

"It's fascinating to open this book and discover which... poems have been favored over the years.... William Harmon's comments on the poems are just right: bright, brief, and appreciative."

Richard Wilbur

The Classic Hundred is fascinating, and I have much enjoyed just turning pages.... [The poems are] charmingly presented by a very perspicacious host and poet, William Harmon.

Robert Creeley

What a great idea. . . . First of all it's interesting to see which poems make it, and then . . . you've got all those great poems.”
—Roy Blount, Jr.

From the Publisher

What a great idea. . . . First of all it's interesting to see which poems make it, and then . . . you've got all those great poems.”
—Roy Blount, Jr.

Roy Blount

Why did no one think of this before?"
—The New York Times Review of Books

The New York Times

"Why did no one think of this before?"

New York Times Book Review