The New Oxford Book of Victorian Verse

by Christopher Ricks (editor)

A great age of poetry speaks for itself in Christopher Ricks's celebrated anthology: the variety and power of Victorian verse, the innovation and creativity with which poets resisted the bad propensities of the era through which they lived.
The great figures are of course strongly represented --Tennyson and Browning, Swinburne and Hopkins--but not so as to crowd out the less expected but equally rewarding facets of light verse and nonsense, of grotesque and protest. At long last justice is done to the poignant directness of "the true voice of feeling," from William Barnes and John Clare, through Emily Jane Bronte and Christina G. Rossetti, to Thomas Hardy.

Genres: Poetry, Classics

688 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Sir Christopher Bruce Ricks, FBA, is a British literary critic and scholar. He is the William M. and Sara B. Warren Professor of the Humanities at Boston University (U.S.) and Co-Director of the Editorial Institute at Boston University, and was Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford (England) from 2004 to 2009. He is the immediate past-president of the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics. He is known as a champion of Victorian poetry; an enthusiast of Bob Dylan, whose lyrics he has analysed at book-length; a trenchant reviewer of writers he considers pretentious (Marshall McLuhan, Christopher Norris, Geoffrey Hartman, Stanley Fish); and a warm reviewer of those he thinks humane or humorous (F. R. Leavis, W. K. Wimsatt, Christina Stead). Hugh Kenner has praised his 'intent eloquence', and Geoffrey Hill his 'unrivalled critical intelligence'. W. H. Auden described Ricks as 'exactly the kind of critic every poet dreams of finding'.

Reviews

[Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm finding it difficult to find the right words for such an exquisite and evocative collection of poetry, but since I have twenty minutes, I'm certainly going to try. I found this rather lengthy book in a secondhand bookshop at a National Trust site. I love visiting the actual site, but quite honestly, I could also spend the entire day in one of their bookshops.

I've always loved poetry, but not all poetry. For me, poetry just has to make me feel something to actually mean anything at all. For instance, a poem that reminds me of a place visited, or a particular person, or if it sends a shiver of familiarity up my spine, definitely becomes one of my go-to poems that I like to refer to, whenever I feel that need.

This collection is full of writers that I know of, and some, I'm not so familiar with, but I appreciate that this book has introduced me to some, that I may not have discovered, if I hadn't found this book. There are are few poems that really struck me, and I'm going to share them here;

The Night is Darkening Around me, by Emily Brontë;

The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me,
And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow;
The storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing drear can move me;
I will not, cannot go.


I've always had a place in my heart for this poem. The very first line draws me in, and it immediately makes me feel like I'm in the dead of night, and the atmosphere is changing, along with the weather. It is such a beautiful piece of writing.


A Silent Wood, by Elizabeth Siddal;

O silent wood, I enter thee
With a heart so full of misery
For all the voices from the trees
And the ferns that cling about my knees.

In thy darkest shadow let me sit
When the grey owls about thee flit;
There will I ask of thee a boon,
That I may not faint or die or swoon.

Gazing through the gloom like one
Whose life and hopes are also done,
Frozen like a thing of stone
I sit in thy shadow but not alone.

Can God bring back the day when we two stood
Beneath the clinging trees in that dark wood?


This one is newly discovered, but this really resonates with me, as I choose to spend much of my time in woods. I feel at peace surrounded in nature, and this poem takes me back to to the wonderful woods, whenever I read it. I love how the tone appears to darken, and to be honest, I really feel the hardship the person is experiencing, but ever still, I can still feel my bare legs moving through the undergrowth and the distant sound of a bird singing, or a squirrel gathering food. It also begs the question whether she and that person will ever be among the woods together again. There are so many suggestions and questions unanswered, but still, so powerful, yet beautifully calming.

The very last poem I discovered nearing the end of this read, and to be honest, if I was standing, I think my legs would have fallen from under me;


During Music, by Arthur Symons;

The music had the heat of blood,
A passion that no words can reach;
We sat together, and understood
Our own heart’s speech.

We had no need of word or sign,
The music spoke for us, and said
All that her eyes could read in mine
Or mine in hers had read.


This is all that I look for in poetry, regardless of it's length, or whether it rhymes or not. Music is my love language and I strongly believe that music communicates, when words are unable to, or when words just don't reach that far. Some people know one another well enough to just know how that person is feeling by saying nothing, and communicating through music. I love how this poem reads, and I believe that is how love can be, quiet, knowing and can gradually build to a heavenly crescendo.

I don't know everything right now, but I do know I will be keeping this poetry book close to me for the years to come.

[Lexi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Christina Rossetti you will forever hold a place in my heart

[Lady Isabelle Jarvis · Rating 4 out of 5]

the poems within are either the most adorable, most haunting, or most horny thing you’ll read
shout out to the power couple browning and EBB uwu