"Spoon River Anthology" is a collection of poetry taken from the tombstones of the dead in a small rural American town. There is of course no Spoon River as the entire town and its inhabitants are fictional. «Spoon River Anthology» is Masters's masterpiece, a collection of poetry that reveals the posthumous confessions of the transgressions of a group of small-town Americans. Together this collection reads like a novel exposing the fal ...
Born and educated in Dublin, Ireland, William Butler Yeats discovered early in his literary career a fascination with Irish folklore and the occult. Later awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923, Yeats produced a vast collection of stories, songs, and poetry of Ireland's historical and legendary past. These writings helped secure for Yeats recognition as a leading proponent of Irish nationalism and Irish cultural independence. Origin ...
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer, whose reputation came primarily from his novels and essays, including «Treasure Island» and «The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde». He is ranked among the 30 most translated authors in the world, ahead of Oscar Wilde and Edgar Allan Poe. Although his notoriety derives largely from his novels and essays, Stevenson produced a large collection of po ...
John Milton is most famously remembered for his epic narrative «Paradise Lost» and its sequel «Paradise Regained». In addition to these classic works Milton wrote several shorter pieces. These shorter works are collected together in this volume and include the following: On the Morning of Christ's Nativity; A Paraphrase on Psalm CXIV; Psalm CXXXVI; On the Death of a Fair Infant Dying of a Cough; At a Vacation Exercise in the College, Part L ...
The cycle of 55 sonnets that comprise Rainer Maria Rilke's «Sonnets to Orpheus» were written in a period of three weeks during 1922, a time which the poet himself described as a «savage creative storm.» Inspired by the death of his daughter's friend, Wera Knoop, Rilke commenced to the production of «Sonnets to Orpheus,» a work filled with mythological and biblical allusions. During the same burst of creative energy he set to working on ...
Born in 1572 in London England, John Donne was an English Jacobean poet of exceptional skill, whose poetry was known for its vibrancy of language and inventiveness of metaphor. While Donne was well educated and his poetic talents considerable he struggled for much of his life to provide for his family. Having published only two volumes during his lifetime, he was not a professional poet. Despite this his legacy on the world of poetry is a signif ...
Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest George Herbert is one the most famous and popular of the metaphysical poets. The Poetry Foundation has described him as «a pivotal figure: enormously popular, deeply and broadly influential, and arguably the most skillful and important British devotional lyricist.» All of Herbert's surviving poems are religious in nature, characterized by their directness of expression and many of which em ...
A visionary of eighteen-century English society, William Blake produced a huge collection of poetry, mythology, satires, political pieces, and prophetic works, in addition to his famous etchings and engravings. Although rejected as a madman during his lifetime for claims of hearing voices and later having visions, Blake has achieved notoriety as an innovative and extraordinarily imaginative artist. His poetry varies greatly in style and substanc ...
Sara Teasdale (1884-1933) became one of the most praised lyric poets of the early twentieth century. In «The Collected Poems,» five of Teasdale's books of poems are brought together, demonstrating her varied output. Teasdale examines love, loss, and death, all with a beautiful lyricism. Her poems range from the traditional to the experimental as she locates and transforms her poetic voice. Born and raised in St. Louis, Teasdale had fragile ...