English poetry

English poetry is the poetry of the English people, or of the English-speaking world generally. The earliest surviving English poetry, written in Anglo-Saxon, the direct predecessor of modern English, may have been composed as early as the 7th century.

Quotes

17th century

• And tell how far thou didst our Lily outshine,
  Or sporting Kid, or Marlowe's mighty line.
  • Ben Jonson, "To the Memory of My Beloved the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare" (1623)

• Marlowe, renown’d for his rare art and wit,
  Could ne’er attain beyond the name of Kit;
  Mellifluous Shakespeare, whose enchanting quill
  Commanded mirth or passion, was but Will;
  And famous Jonson, though his learned pen
  Be dipped in Castaly, is still but Ben.
  Fletcher and Webster, of that learned pack
  None of the meanest, was but Jack;
  Dekker but Tom, nor May, nor Middleton,
  And he’s but now Jack Ford that once was John.
  • Thomas Heywood, Hierarchy of the Blessed Angels (1635) bk. 4

These poets near our princes sleep,
And in one grave their mansion keep.

• Old Chaucer, like the morning star,
  To us discovers day from far;
  His light those mists and clouds dissolved;
  Which our dark nation long involved:
  But he descending to the shades,
  Darkness again the age invades.
  Next, like Aurora, Spenser rose,
  Whose purple blush the day foreshows;
  The other three, with his own fires,
  Phoebus, the poets’ god, inspires;
  By Shakespeare’s, Jonson’s, Fletcher’s lines,
  Our stage’s lustre Rome’s outshines:
  These poets near our princes sleep,
  And in one grave their mansion keep.
  • John Denham, "On Mr. Abraham Cowley’s Death and Burial among the Ancient Poets" (1671)

19th century

• We must be free or die, who speak the tongue
     That Shakespeare spake; the faith and morals hold
  Which Milton held. — In every thing we are sprung
     Of Earth’s first blood, have titles manifold.
  • William Wordsworth, Sonnet: "It is not to be thought of", l. 11. Poems in Two Volumes (1807)

• For this Anthology I have tried to range over the whole field of English Verse from the beginning, or from the Thirteenth Century to this closing year of the Nineteenth, and to choose the best. Nor have I sought in these Islands only, but wheresoever the Muse has followed the tongue which among living tongues she most delights to honour.
  • Arthur Quiller-Couch, The Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250–1900 (1900) Preface (p. vii)

• I have gathered the most of the Ballads into the middle of the Seventeenth Century; where they fill a languid interval between two winds of inspiration — the Italian dying down with Milton and the French following at the heels of the restored Royalists.
  • Arthur Quiller-Couch, The Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250–1900 (1900) Preface (p. vii)

20th century

• I dip my hat to Chaucer,
  Swilling soup from his saucer,
  And to Master Shakespeare
  Who wrote big on small beer.
  The abstemious Wordsworth
  Subsisted on a curd’s-worth,
  But a slick one was Tennyson,
  Putting gravy on his venison.
  The influence of Milton
  Came wry out of Stilton.
  Sing a song for Percy Shelley,
  Drowned in pale lemon jelly,
  And for precious John Keats,
  Dripping blood of pickled beets.
  Then there was poor Willie Blake,
  He foundered on sweet cake.
  • John Crowe Ransom, "Survey of Literature", in Addison Hibbard (ed.) The Lyric South (1928) p. 169

• The Muses' house has many mansions: their hospitality has outlived many policies of State, more than a few religions, countless heresies — tamen usque recurret Apollo — and it were profane to misdoubt the Nine as having forsaken these so long favoured Islands. Of experiment I still hold myself fairly competent to judge. But, writing in 1939, I am at a loss what to do with a fashion of morose disparagement; of sneering at things long by catholic consent accounted beautiful; of scorning at 'Man's unconquerable mind' and hanging up (without benefit of laundry) our common humanity as a rag on a clothes-line. Be it allowed that these present times are dark. Yet what are our poets of use-what are they for if they can-not hearten the crew with auspices of daylight? In a time no less perilous Wordsworth could write:
            In our halls is hung
     Armoury of the invincible knights of old.
  — 'armoury', not museum-pieces, still less tear-bottles. 'Agincourt, Agincourt, know ye not Agincourt?'.
  The reader, turning the pages of this book, will find this this note of valiancy of the old Roman 'virtue' mated with cheerfulness — dominant throughout, if in many curious moods. He may trace it back, if he care, far behind Chaucer to the rudest beginnings of English Song. It is indigenous, proper to our native spirit, and it will endure.
  • Arthur Quiller-Couch, The Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250–1918 (1939) Preface to New Edition (pp. xii–xiii)

• Of her choice virtues only gods should speak,
  Or English poets who grew up on Greek
  (I’d have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek).
  • Theodore Roethke, "I Knew a Woman", l. 5. Words for the Wind (1958)

• Any anthologist of the unparagoned achievement that is English poetry must enjoy the pleasure, privilege, and responsibility of being for a while the master of its ceremonies. Or of being, at any rate, in the rueful Americanism, kinda humble and kinda proud.
  • Christopher Ricks, The Oxford Book of English Verse (1999) Preface (p. xxxiii)

• English poetry – having a life of its own – is forever being supplemented, complemented, culled, and found afresh. The anthologist had better not repine at the thought of his or her future departure.
  • Christopher Ricks, The Oxford Book of English Verse (1999) Preface (p. xxxiii)

External links

• Encyclopedic article on English poetry on Wikipedia