Classic Hundred All-Time Favorite Poems (Highbridge Distribution)

ISBN 10: 1565112490 ISBN 13: 9781565112490

Publisher: Highbridge Audio, 1998

Synopsis

Imagine if Billboard compiled a list of the top 100 poems, chosen not by critics or professors but by the people themselves. That's the concept behind The Classic Hundred, and it works brilliantly. William Harmon found the 100 most anthologized poems in English, based on the ninth edition of The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry—the most objective measurement of greatness available, representing consensus among the editors of some 400 anthologies. Then he put them in order and prefaced each one with concise, erudite, often humorous commentary. The range of poets, subjects, and forms—from Shakespeare to Frost, from love and death to crime and punishment, from sonnets to odes—makes this an entertaining, enlightening, and indispensable aural guide to the finest verse in the English language.

About this title

About the Author:

WILLIAM HARMON is James Gordon Hanes Professor of the Humanities at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, author of five books of poetry and editor of A Handbook to Literature. His most recent poetry has appeared in Blink and Light.

From AudioFile:

These "Top 100" poems were deter-mined by the consensus of over one thousand anthologists and arranged in chronological order. The poems, mostly by British poets, span the canon, from "Sir Patrick Spens" to Eliot and Dylan Thomas, and are read by 16 contemporary poets. However, of the 47 poets represented, only 4 were born after 1900 and only 2 are women (Dickinson and Julia Ward Howe). Each poet is introduced with a biographical sketch--ably rendered by actress Laura Esterman--which puts him/her in a cultural context. In addition, each poem is preceded by a brief comment on the work. The poets who read the poems bring their own reading styles to the program. One clear advantage of the CD edition of this program is that a listener can program a CD player to play only the poems and skip the introductions. P.B.J. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

About this edition

• Publisher: Highbridge Audio
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 1565112490
• ISBN 13: 9781565112490
• Binding: Audio CD
• Editor: Harmon William