The History of English Poetry
“Whitfield’s history is less a textbook than a rough guide, but if his enthusiasm doesn’t inspire you to buy a volume of Swinburne—aristo, atheist, aesthete, alcoholic, sadomasochist—I’ll be surprised.”
Guardian (London)
Great poetry can indeed outlast stone and the glory of princes, and the English poetic tradition is among the world’s richest. This audiobook tells the story of that tradition through its towering figures—Spenser and Shakespeare, Milton and Dryden, Wordsworth and Tennyson, Whitman, Dickinson, and Eliot—and through scores of other poets. Clear and accessible, blending criticism with imagination and illustrated with scores of quotations, this new history will delight all who care about the past and the future of English poetry.
Praise