Selected Poems and Prefaces

by William Wordsworth, Jack Stillinger

Selected Poems And Prefaces (Riverside Editions)

Genres: Poetry

608 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was a major English romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their 1798 joint publication, Lyrical Ballads.

Wordsworth's masterpiece is generally considered to be The Prelude, an autobiographical poem of his early years, which the poet revised and expanded a number of times. The work was posthumously titled and published, prior to which, it was generally known as the poem "to Coleridge". Wordsworth was England's Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death in 1850.

Reviews

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

I know it's probably sacrilege or something to even presume to discuss the quality of the actual poetry of someone who is considered a "great poet", but I think I'll go there anyway. After reading all his short(ish) poems in this collection, I'm surprised by how inconsistent he can be. About half of it--the half that's on constant rotation in every single English poetry anthology or literature textbook--is so brilliant it's actually massively underrated in those same textbooks. The other half ranges from meh to unintentionally funny. I guess the sad part of being a "great poet" is that while people gloss over his mistakes, they also treat his good stuff like some kind of period poetry fossils, and not like the original mind blowing pieces of genius that they actually are.

As for the edition itself, it's some kind of old British textbook (no ISBN? really? must be legit...), but it's actually pretty good. It has really good notes and introductions. Even a map of the Lake District, for whatever that's worth.

[Jess · Rating 1 out of 5]

Reading this book, I realized that I much prefer 20th and 21st century poetry (e.g. Mary Oliver, Pablo Neruda, etc.) much more than 17th century poetry. However, Wordsworth certainly has a way with words and the English language. I gave it one star because I found it dry as dirt, but had a lot of time today (procrastinating!) to read the requisite 75 pages for the College Students Spring/Summer Challenge.

[Ian]

Really need to re-read this soon