II
SUGGESTIONS FOR READING
This is not intended in any way to be an exhaustive list. It merely suggests the field which each student is bound to explore for himself.
Technique of Verse.
The Rhymester—Tom Hood. Concise; with rhyming dictionary appendix.
Science of Verse—Sidney Lanier. Worth while for the advanced student.
—The Poetic Principle,
—Philosophy of Compensation,
—Rationale of Verse. Essays by Edgar Allan Poe; to be found in his collected works. Very interesting as showing the methods and viewpoint of a great poet.
Ward’s English Poets. Four volumes ranging from Chaucer to Tennyson.
Oxford Book of English Verse. One large volume containing the work of many of the living writers as well as selections from all the standard poets.
—Victorian Anthology.
—American Anthology. Both compiled by Edmund Clarence Stedman. Valuable because they contain examples of the best work of to-day’s verse makers.
The Sonnet.
Examples of the sonnet are to be found in almost any collection of verse. The older magazines, especially the Atlantic Monthly, use the form continually. The best known sonnet series are:
Astrophel and Stella—Sir Philip Sidney.
Sonnets of Shakespeare.
House of Life—Rossetti.
Sonnets from the Portuguese—Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Examples are to be found in the collected poems of Austin Dobson, Andrew Lang, W. E. Henley and H. C. Bunner, to mention only the more prominent. The Ballade Book, edited by Gleeson White, Ex Libris Series, contains examples of all the forms and is probably the most convenient collection to be had.
The Song.
In this connection see Burns, Moore, Tennyson, together with Scotch collections and the work of W. B. Yeats and other modern Irish writers. For rhythm and a different sort of “song” see Kipling. The Vagabondia Series by Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey are worth buying. Occasional poems, falling under this head, are to be found in almost any volume of the poets.
Vers de Société.
About the best single book is a volume in the Leisure Hour Series entitled “Vers de Société.” It gives an excellent idea of the field covered. Among the strongest writers of this style of verse are Austin Dobson, C. S. Calverley, Andrew Lang, W. M. Praed and H. C. Bunner. Perhaps the best known English writer of to-day is Owen Seaman, whose work appears weekly in Punch.
Nonsense Verse.
Mother Goose.
The Burgess Nonsense Book—Gelett Burgess.
A Nonsense Anthology—Carolyn Wells.
A Parody Anthology—Carolyn Wells.
Humorous Ballads.
Bab Ballads—W. S. Gilbert.
Grimm Tales Made Gay—Guy Wetmore Carryl.
Nautical Ballads of a Landsman—Wallace Irwin.
Translations.
It is difficult to quote any translator in particular who is worth while. Most translators are not poets and most poets have not been translators. The book of solid translation is generally very mediocre and tiresome. Translations of the greatest foreign poets are to be found in any fair-sized public library. Longfellow, Swinburne, Rossetti, Dobson, Lang and a few others have left occasional translations which are models of the best of this work.