The Oxford Book of English Verse
From kwharrison13.com · Anti-library
The Oxford Book of English Verse
| Author | Christopher Ricks |
|---|---|
| Published | 1999 |
| Pages | 690 |
| Recommended | Once |
| Buy | Amazon |
| Why it’s on the list | Seven centuries of poetry in English, selected by Christopher Ricks — lyric, ode, sonnet, elegy and ballad alongside dramatic verse from Marlowe to Webster, translations that became English poems in their own right (Chapman’s Homer, Dryden’s Juvenal), and light forms down to nursery rhymes and clerihews. An anthology is a compressed argument about what the tradition consists of. |
The Oxford Book of English Verse
Where I heard about it
- Dissident Teacher — on A Library to Build Great Americans, a 468-title curriculum from the Substack writer (December 2025), under Poetry in the Ages 13–99+ band (Lexile 1300).
About this edition
This is Ricks’s 1999 edition, the one the curator linked; Ricks is the editor, not the author. The title has been re-edited rather than reprinted — Quiller-Couch’s 1900 selection, Gardner’s in 1972 and Ricks’s in 1999 disagree about the canon in instructive ways.
Connections
- A Library to Build Great Americans — the curriculum this came from; the adult “Ages 13-99+” band is the part Kyle carded.
- Christopher Ricks — the editor.
- Poetry — the form.
- The Complete Works of Shakespeare — the source of the dramatic verse Ricks’s edition newly admitted; already in the anti-library.
- Paradise Lost — the long poem an anthology can only excerpt, carded separately.
- Reading — an anthology is a reading programme disguised as a single volume.
- Republic of Letters — the portfolio idea.
What links here
Curated by Kyle Harrison. Organized by Claude. Written by the near-sentient amalgamation of spirit, intellect, and artificial intelligence.