The Classic Hundred Poems Audiobook By William Shakespeare, William Wordsworth, W.B. Yeats, William Harmon - editor cover art

The Classic Hundred Poems

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The Classic Hundred Poems

By: William Shakespeare, William Wordsworth, W.B. Yeats, William Harmon - editor
Narrated by: Alfred Corn, Rita Dove
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Adopting the methodology of the music charts, The Classic Hundred Poems presents the "top 100" poems of all time. Determined by a consensus of over 1,000 compilers, and arranged in chronological order, each author's work is illuminated by the informative notes of editor William Harmon, who offers insight into the historical period in which each author lived and the author's choice of verse form, tone, and style. This program is read by an ensemble of contemporary poets, including Alfred Corn, Rita Dove, Cornelius Eady, Jorie Graham, Eamon Grennan, Anthony Hecht, Maureen Howard, and James Merrill.©1990, 1997 Columbia University Press (P)16 9; 1998 HighBridge Company Classics Collections & Anthologies Drama & Plays European Poetry Shakespeare World Literature Classic Poetry
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Excellent listen to revisit and enjoy poems. Appreciate the commentary introduction to the poets and brief descriptions of the the works.

A varied wash of poetry

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This collection of 100 classic poems of the modern English language is a great way to experience old favorites as well as discover new poets. My educational background is in English Literature and prose creative writing more so than poetry specifically, so I was only exposed to THE most popular poems in school. This collection has value not just in having 46 different poets represented, but also introducing each poet and poem with a little blurb. This framing device could help those who are not used to interpreting poetry pick up on key concepts and ideas.

I was familiar with some poets in this collection, including William Shakespeare, John Donne, John Milton, Robert Burns, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Edgar Allen Poe, Lord Tennyson, Emily Dickinson, Lewis Carroll, Robert Frost, and Dylan Thomas. This collection also introduced me to works whose poets I was less familiar with, including Christopher Marlowe, Richard Lovelace, Thomas Gray, William Blake, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Thomas Hardy, William Butler Yeats, T.S. Eliot, and W.H. Auden. I liked that the collection is arranged chronologically by the poets' lives; works between 1503 - 1953 are included.

Overall, I cannot really fault this book because it delivers on its promises. No Old English, so I'll have to engage with those works elsewhere. This also inspires me to engage with more poetry from other languages and cultures.

Classic 100 English Poems

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This was a wonderful presentation of poems from various eras. I would recommend this book.

The Greats

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The poems take you away to another time and place and I throughly enjoy that but the stories behind the creators are fascinating as well

Portmanteau

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The poems are great, and if you enjoy them, by all means get this production. However, the poems are read by poets, and in some cases, these are not very well read.

Poems are great, but...

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Like your favorite song performed by your favorite artists, this is the one and only audio book that you can listen endlessly and it will never let you down. These classic poems speak for themselves but add to it the impeccable narrator performance and the smart-yet-playful commentary and you have ...a jewel.

A jewel

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Some of the greatest poems ever written, read beautifully by poets, and introduced with information about both the poet and the poem. If you like poetry at all you cannot go wrong with this book!

Wonderful!!

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The poems were nice but sometimes the introductions to the poems were not great or were too long. Makes it less nice to listen to everything twice

Great selection but intros get boring

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From the anonymous author of Sir Patrick Spens (13th century) to Dylan Thomas' A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child (1945), the greatest English language poems.

Sure beats listening to Hotel California for the 1620th time.

All the hits.

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I believe a poem is best experienced by hearing it. This selection of poems is a good place to start. I enjoyed the introduction to each poem, placing it in historical context and the touch of biography. What I did not enjoy was the one female reader who chose to remove all life, all emotion, all enjoyment from the poems she read. Even with this flaw, I would recommend this audio book for an overview of English Language poetry.

Mixed bag

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