The Best Poems of the English Language: From Chaucer Through Frost

999 Pages·2004·357.412 MB·

by  Harold Bloom

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Bestselling Author of Shakespeare: The Inv
Canada $53.95 ©
A personal selection and commentary \
by one of the finest critics in the English language |
he Best Poems of the English Language is the
culmination for Harold Bloom of his
lifelong love of poetry. It is a compre-
hensive anthology that offers the reader possession of
six centuries of great British and American poetry.
The vast scope of this anthology begins with
Chaucer and ends with poets whose births predate
1900. Bloom has culled his selection according to his
three absolute criteria: aesthetic splendor, intellectual
power, and wisdom.
Featured in this volume is a substantial and
significant introductory essay called “The Art of

Reading Poetry.” This essay presents Bloom’s critical
reflections on more than a half century devoted to
reading, teaching, and writing about the literary
achievement he loves best, and conveys his passion- _
ate concern for how a poem should be interpreted
and appreciated. Throughout this anthology, Bloom.
includes extensive introductions to each poet and to
many of the individual poems. In such commentar-
ies, Bloom guides the reader through what is most
relevant for a true understanding of the more than |
one hundred poets selected. |
The Best Poems of the English Language is regarded by
' Harold Bloom as his mot significant meditation
upon all those poets in English who have formed his
mind. Here in one volume is an abundance that cai.
never be exhausted.
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THE BEST POEMS OF
THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
-
ALSO BY HAROLD BLOOM
Hamlet: Poem Unlimited (2003)
Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds (2002)
Stories and Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children of All Ages (2001)
How to Read and Why (2000)
Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human (1998)
Omens of Millennium (1996)
The Western Canon (1994)
The American Religion (1992)
The Book of J (1990)
Ruin the Sacred Truths (1989)
Poetics of Influence (1988)
The Strong Light of the Canonical (1987)
Agon: Towards a Theory of Revisionism (1982)
The Breaking of the Vessels (1982)
The Flight to Lucifer: A Gnostic Fantasy (1979)
Wallace Stevens: The Poems of Our Climate (1977)
Figures of Capable Imagination (1976)
Poetry and Repression (1976)
Kabbalah and Criticism (1975)
A Map of Misreading (1975)
The Anxiety of Influence (1973)
The Ringers in the Tower: Studies in Romantic Tradition (1971)
Yeats (1970)
Commentary to the Poetry and Prose of William Blake (1965)
Blake’s Apocalypse (1963)
The Visionary Company (1961)
Shelley’s Mythmaking (1959)
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