Great Poets

One of the most distinctive periods in poetry occurred in England early in the 1800s. This is now referred to as the age of romanticism, a movement which rebelled against the neoclassical forms and celebrated the imagination as a spiritual force. John Keats was a prominent shaper of this new movement, and as such, he was not without his critics. "I think I shall be among the English Poets after my death," he soberly prophesied. Indeed, Keats suffered an early tragic death of tuberculosis at the age of twenty-five but today is recognized as the archetypal romantic genius who explored the limits of the imagination and celebrated the pleasures of the senses. Unlike Shelley, Keats was not a political poet; his prime passion was for art. His muse was the goddess of beauty and truth, and his worship of her found its finest expression in his immortal odes, which stand unique in literature, unexcelled in perfection.

Considered the bridge between romanticism and modernism, Matthew Arnold wrote verse that is simple, unadorned and straightforward. From the hypnotic and beautiful lines of Dover Beach, to the pastoral narrative of The Scholar Gipsy, Arnold cast a gaze at the main intellectual issues of the nineteenth century while giving a timeless insight into man and nature. This collection covers his major poetic works, including the narrative poems, sonnets and elegiac poems, illuminating the lyricism and serenity of Arnold's best poetry. • Delivered with verve and passion, Jonathan Keeble's reading is suffused with an energy found in Arnold's most moving poetry. • Other poems include Desire, Longing, A Summer Night, Consolation, Philomela, A Dream, East London, West London, Thyrsis, Immortality, Growing Old, A Wish, Bacchanalia; Or, The New Age, A Modern Sappho, The Hayswater Boat, The River, Human Life, The Buried Life, Austerity of Poetry, A Farewell, Requiescat.

Seer, prophet, visionary, preacher, Walt Whitman stands out as one of poetry's towering anomalies: in celebrating the trees, water, sky and air, the bear, the eagle, the buffalo and the lion, Whitman expressed a uniquely democratic vision that engulfs not only the American continent but the entire universe. His passionate vehemence, his faith in the common man, and his unflinching pursuit of the truth gave form to an arsenal of ideas, inspiring and motivating generations of writers to come.

This edition of the Great Poets series shares some of John Keats' most influential and popular poems. Having sadly lived a short life, Keats was nonetheless a prolific writer who left an indelible mark on the literary canon.

Unquestionably one of the greatest voices in English poetry, Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote verse of unequalled majesty and profound lyrical strength, becoming Poet Laureate in 1850. But his position as the Victorians' favorite poet masks his subtlety and complexity. The poems collected here show the range of his styles and the astonishing quality of his finest work, lines, verses, even entire poems have become an integral part of the English language, not just its literature.