The mentor book of major American poets,: From Edward Taylor and Walt Whitman to Hart Crane and W.H. Auden (A Mentor book) (Unknown Binding)

by Oscar Williams (Author) "Infinity, when all things it beheld,..." (more)
Key Phrases: thy vanity, heart like mine, Captain Carpenter, Annabel Lee, Holy Ghost (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
A compact anthology of 3 centuries of poetry by 20 great American poets. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Unknown Binding: 535 pages
• Publisher: New American Library (1962)
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0007DPKXM
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 3.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,590,557 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The great American poets , December 23, 2004

By	Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

This review is from: The Mentor Book of Major American Poets (Mass Market Paperback)

This work contains samples of many outstanding American poets and also of the great American poets. In my own feeling the great American poets are few in number. Whitman, Dickinson , Wallace Stevens , Eliot ( if he is an American) and on the borderline Poe Frost and Cummings. This anthology which contains works only up until the early sixties does not thus include today's most well- known active poets. But in my feeling( and it is only that ) these poets do not come to the level of their great predecessors. And here I think Emerson's judgment is correct and the one poet who most embodies the spirit of America at least in its most expansive phase is Whitman.
This anthology though contains the work of many very good poets , and thus any real reader of it will certainly have a true idea and feeling of what American poetry is about.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but shows its age, September 5, 2002

By	Michael J. Mazza (Pittsburgh, PA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

This review is from: The Mentor Book of Major American Poets (Mass Market Paperback)

"The Mentor Book of Major American Poets," edited by Oscar Williams and Edwin Honig, brings together generous selections from the work of 20 writers: Edward Taylor, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Stephen Crane, Robert Frost, Vachel Lindsay, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, Marianne Moore, John Crowe Ransom, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Archibald MacLeish, E.E. Cummings, Hart Crane, and W.H. Auden. These authors span the 17th to 20th centuries (the youngest was born in 1907). Many styles, forms, and themes are contained within this rich anthology.

That having been said, I must note that the book has a copyright date of 1962, and it really shows its age. It's hard to imagine someone compiling an anthology of major american poets (to 1962) today and making the omissions that Williams and Honig did: Anne Bradstreet, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, and many others.

Despite its deficiencies, this is a wonderful collection that contains a wealth of memorable pieces. A few of my favorites: Taylor's rapturous "Stupendous Love!"; Emerson's "The Snowstorm," which celebrates the "frolic architecture of the snow"; Poe's masterwork "The Raven"; Whitman's ecstatic, all-embracing "Song of Myself"; a marvelous selection of Dickinson's quirky genius; Robinson's tragic "Richard Cory"; S. Crane's haunting short poems; Lindsay's lush, musical (and very politically incorrect!) "The Congo"; Cummings' amazing sonnet beginning "when serpents bargain for the right to squirm"; and much more.

I recommend this book for anyone interested in American poetry, but caution that, because of its dated nature, it needs to be supplemented.

5.0 out of 5 stars American Poets, November 25, 2008

By	Sondra Schmid - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Mentor Book of Major American Poets (Mass Market Paperback)

What a lovely compilation of great works by American poets. It satisfied the reading requirements for my kids high school language arts course.