The Best Poems of the English Language: From Chaucer Through Robert Frost (2004)

by Harold Bloom

Other authors: Léonie Adams (Contributor), Conrad Aiken (Contributor), Matthew Arnold (Contributor), Thomas Lovell Beddoes (Contributor), William Blake (Contributor) — 97 more, Louise Bogan (Contributor), Robert Bridges (Contributor), Emily Brontë (Contributor), Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Contributor), Robert Browning (Contributor), William Cullan Bryant (Contributor), Robert Burns (Contributor), George Gordon Byron, Lord (Contributor), Thomas Campion (Contributor), Thomas Carew (Contributor), Lewis Carroll (Contributor), Geoffrey Chaucer (Contributor), John Clare (Contributor), John Cleveland (Contributor), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Contributor), William Collins (Contributor), William Cowper (Contributor), Hart Crane (Contributor), Stephen Crane (Contributor), Richard Crashaw (Contributor), George Darley (Contributor), Emily Dickinson (Contributor), John Donne (Contributor), Ernest Dowson (Contributor), Michael Drayton (Contributor), John Dryden (Contributor), William Dunbar (Contributor), T. S. Eliot (Contributor), Ralph Waldo Emerson (Contributor), Edward Fitzgerald (Contributor), Robert Frost (Contributor), Thomas Gray (Contributor), H. D. (Contributor), Thomas Hardy (Contributor), George Herbert (Contributor), Robert Herrick (Contributor), Gerald Manley Hopkins (Contributor), A. E. Housman (Contributor), Julia Ward Howe (Contributor), Robinson Jeffers (Contributor), Lionel Johnson (Contributor), Samuel Johnson (Contributor), Ben Jonson (Contributor), John Keats (Contributor), Walter Savage Landor (Contributor), D. H. Lawrence (Contributor), Edward Lear (Contributor), Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Contributor), Richard Lovelace (Contributor), Christopher Marlowe (Contributor), Andrew Marvell (Contributor), Herman Melville (Contributor), George Meredith (Contributor), Edna St. Vincent Millay (Contributor), John Milton (Contributor), Marianne Moore (Contributor), William Morris (Contributor), Thomas Nashe (Contributor), Wilfred Owen (Contributor), Thomas Love Peacock (Contributor), Edgar Allen Poe (Contributor), Alexander Pope (Contributor), Ezra Pound (Contributor), Walter Raleigh (Contributor), John Crowe Ransom (Contributor), Edward Arlington Robinson (Contributor), Isaac Rosenberg (Contributor), Christina Rossetti (Contributor), Dante Gabriel Rossetti (Contributor), William Shakespeare (Contributor), Percy Bysshe Shelley (Contributor), James Shirley (Contributor), Sir Philip Sidney (Contributor), Christopher Smart (Contributor), Robert Southwell (Contributor), Edmund Spenser (Contributor), Wallace Stevens (Contributor), Trumbull Stickney (Contributor), John Suckling (Contributor), Algernon Charles Swinburne (Contributor), Alan Tate (Contributor), Alfred Tennyson, Lord (Contributor), Edward Thomas (Contributor), Henry David Thoreau (Contributor), Chidiock Tichborne (Contributor), Thomas Traherne (Contributor), Henry Vaughan (Contributor), Jones Very (Contributor), Edmund Waller (Contributor), John Brooks Wheelwright (Contributor), Walt Whitman (Contributor), William Carlos Williams (Contributor), John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (Contributor), William Wordsworth (Contributor), Sir Thomas Wyatt (Contributor), Elinor Wylie (Contributor), William Butler Yeats (Contributor)

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This comprehensive anthology attempts to give the common reader possession of six centuries of great British and American poetry. The book features a large introductory essay by Harold Bloom called "The Art of Reading Poetry," which presents his critical reflections of more than half a century devoted to the reading, teaching, and writing about the literary achievement he loves most. In the case of all major poets in the language, this volume offers either the entire range of what is most valuable in their work, or vital selections that illuminate each figure′s contribution. There are also headnotes by Harold Bloom to every poet in the volume as well as to the most important individual poems. Much more than any other anthology ever gathered, this book provides readers who desire the pleasures of a sublime art with very nearly everything they need in a single volume. It also is regarded as his final meditation upon all those who have formed his mind.… (more)

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Harold Bloom (July 11, 1930 – October 14, 2019), the late Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale, selected the “Best Poems . . .” collection using his most capacious of memories and applying an intellectual tool that he called “the anxiety of influence.” His amazing capacity to hold onto and compare works in multiple dimensions suggests the contents of this book and he implicitly invites the reader to perform that same act of mental enrichment as one of the roles of the reader. Discussion of contents pro or con, admitted or excluded, demands the kind of rich intellectual qualitative problem-solving of which Harold Bloom would approve. (

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SickOfSignInProblems | Mar 12, 2021 |

No clarifications of difficult words or annotations (

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badger-jc | Jul 8, 2008 |

I guess the publisher came up with this book's title: "Poems from England and the United States that I Feel Like Anthologising, with Some Notes on Poets I Hate" would have been more accurate, but isn't as catchy. (

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shawjonathan | Jul 18, 2007 |

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Author name	Role	Type of author	Work?	Status
Harold Bloom	—	primary author	all editions	calculated
Adams, Léonie	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Aiken, Conrad	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Arnold, Matthew	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Beddoes, Thomas Lovell	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Blake, William	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Bogan, Louise	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Bridges, Robert	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Brontë, Emily	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Browning, Robert	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Bryant, William Cullan	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Burns, Robert	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Byron, George Gordon, Lord	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Campion, Thomas	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Carew, Thomas	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Carroll, Lewis	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Chaucer, Geoffrey	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Clare, John	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Cleveland, John	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Collins, William	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Cowper, William	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Crane, Hart	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Crane, Stephen	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Crashaw, Richard	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Darley, George	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Dickinson, Emily	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Donne, John	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Dowson, Ernest	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Drayton, Michael	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Dryden, John	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Dunbar, William	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Eliot, T. S.	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Emerson, Ralph Waldo	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Fitzgerald, Edward	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Frost, Robert	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Gray, Thomas	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
H. D.	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Hardy, Thomas	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Herbert, George	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Herrick, Robert	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Hopkins, Gerald Manley	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Housman, A. E.	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Howe, Julia Ward	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Jeffers, Robinson	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Johnson, Lionel	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Johnson, Samuel	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Jonson, Ben	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Keats, John	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Landor, Walter Savage	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Lawrence, D. H.	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Lear, Edward	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Lovelace, Richard	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Marlowe, Christopher	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Marvell, Andrew	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Melville, Herman	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Meredith, George	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Millay, Edna St. Vincent	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Milton, John	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Moore, Marianne	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Morris, William	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Nashe, Thomas	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Owen, Wilfred	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Peacock, Thomas Love	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Poe, Edgar Allen	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Pope, Alexander	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Pound, Ezra	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Raleigh, Walter	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Ransom, John Crowe	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Robinson, Edward Arlington	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Rosenberg, Isaac	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Rossetti, Christina	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Shakespeare, William	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Shelley, Percy Bysshe	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Shirley, James	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Sidney, Sir Philip	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Smart, Christopher	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Southwell, Robert	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Spenser, Edmund	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Stevens, Wallace	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Stickney, Trumbull	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Suckling, John	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Swinburne, Algernon Charles	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Tate, Alan	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Tennyson, Alfred, Lord	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Thomas, Edward	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Thoreau, Henry David	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Tichborne, Chidiock	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Traherne, Thomas	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Vaughan, Henry	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Very, Jones	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Waller, Edmund	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Wheelwright, John Brooks	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Whitman, Walt	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Williams, William Carlos	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Wilmot, John, Earl of Rochester	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Wordsworth, William	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Wyatt, Sir Thomas	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Wylie, Elinor	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Yeats, William Butler	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed

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The Art of Reading Poetry by Harold Bloom

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Though arranged chronologically, this vast book is intended for every kind of personal use, so that literary history is essentially irrelevant to its purposes, as are all considerations of political correctness and incorrectness. [Introduction]

Poetry is essentially figurative language, concentrated so that its form is both expressive and evocative.

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Adah Isaacs Menken

Children of The Night

Harold Bloom

▾Book descriptions

This comprehensive anthology attempts to give the common reader possession of six centuries of great British and American poetry. The book features a large introductory essay by Harold Bloom called "The Art of Reading Poetry," which presents his critical reflections of more than half a century devoted to the reading, teaching, and writing about the literary achievement he loves most. In the case of all major poets in the language, this volume offers either the entire range of what is most valuable in their work, or vital selections that illuminate each figure′s contribution. There are also headnotes by Harold Bloom to every poet in the volume as well as to the most important individual poems. Much more than any other anthology ever gathered, this book provides readers who desire the pleasures of a sublime art with very nearly everything they need in a single volume. It also is regarded as his final meditation upon all those who have formed his mind.

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