Anthony Thwaite Books

When I was producing a video biography of Longfellow for Macmillan/McGraw-Hill in 1992, I needed a one-volume selection of Longfellow's poetry, and this book did the job very nicely. It includes Longfellow's best-known poems as well as two others that were never published during the poet's lifetime but must be classed with his finest work. The introduction by Lawrence Buell provides a useful biographical sketch and a thoughtful discussion of why Longfellow--the most famous American of his time--is not more widely read today. Buell's observations may get you thinking about this schoolbook poet in a different way.

Longellow is the poet of the American public school. 'Evangeline' 'The Courtship of Miles Standish' 'Paul Revere's Ride' ' The Village Blacksmith' ' 'A Psalm of life' and others. His reputation in the nineteenth century was great and overwhelming. Yet his reputation in the realm of poetry today is not with those artists of the canon, Tennyson and Browning in England, and Whitman and Dickinson in the United States. Perhaps it is because his poems are taken to be not inventive enough linguistically. Perhaps it is because the very thing many have praised him for his musicality seems today to be less than the irregular music of a Hopkins or Dylan Thomas.
In any case in Longfellow one will find sound solid lines, a certain moral stance , a kind of American integrity. For someone like myself reading Longfellow is a nostalgic trip and a new perspective on what I read so long ago. He has much to give even if it is not quite at the highest poetic level.

I love this book it is something that men and women would enjoy. I have tons of information on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow because our house is a remake of his he lived from 1807-1882. If I were you I would buy it I am the biggest fan of his I have every single book of poems,songs,and more on him in paperback and hardcover. Buy it!

Whether you are simply exploring an interest in poetry or are a seasoned reader of the great poets, Longfellow's poems will move you. There is a poem in this collection that is perfect for every mood you could be in. If you are down and need to be lifted up, if you simply want to smile about the beauty of life, or if your heart has been broken, Longfellow's works will speak to your heart. Longfellow's works have spoken to my soul as no other poet or writer has ever before.

I have only recently discovered the poetry of Larkin, and his work is insightful, droll, sometimes depressing, but always engaging. He was not afraid of rhyming and using strict meters, and his poems are often beautiful because of, not despite, these elements of traditional poetic craft. A worthy addition to any bookshelf of top-flight poetry.

I am one of a growing number that find Larkin lame and flaccid. You read, you understand, you move on. There is little to struggle over, nothing one wishes to reread. Simple poems of a lost England.

This poetry has no redemption or beauty. It is dry, sarcastic, dismal, and plain out unhealthy to the mind. It's not worth it. Read poetry that moves you to understanding, not this.

Perhaps Larkin has been somewhat overlooked because he wrote in rhymed verse and the past century has been increasingly focused on free verse. I generally favor free verse, myself, but Larkin's skill at rhyme is such that it is always unobtrusive, never strained or forced, and sometimes.

But, his modernity is indisputable, combining, and perhaps exceeding, the humanity of Auden as well as the perspicacity of Eliot.

His is clearly a concise body of work, but it is large in its range and insight. Larkin's poems often express an thought or feeling that the reader will recognize as a part of his own experience, finally put into words with the utmost clarity. He played his "tennis" with the net, but remained distinctly modern.

There are two different types of Larkin poem. The first type, mostly written before 1955, are influenced by Yeats and Auden and are mediocre. The second, written when he found his voice, are amongst the most wonderful works of English literature ever written.
So what was his voice? Basically that of twentieth century man - atheistic, obsessed with sex, regretting the loss of faith and the old certainties. He takes these subjects and turns them into glorious poems. But here's the really incredible thing: he uses ordinary, uncomplicated language. No tricks, no arcane allusions, just plain English.
It can't be denied that the voice is bleak, and it is too uncompromising for some. However, those who like looking into the heart of darkness will find poems which they will remember for the rest of their lives.

There are two types of people who would normally consider buying this book: a person interested in world literature and/or poetry, or someone who enjoys or is studying Japanese literature in particular.

For the former, this book will be more than satisfactory. It contains a broad cross-section of poetry, from ancient times to more recent poets, and includes an easy to understand introduction to the general history of Japanese verse. For those who enjoyed this, the next step would be to move into a larger collection like From the Country of Eight Islands.

For someone more serious about studying or reading Japanese literature, it would be better to go strait for From the Country of Eight Islands or one of the more concentrated collections/translations. This book was apparently only meant to satisfy a nitche in the area of published works, i.e. a small, general collection of Japanese poetry translations, but, as can be assumed from only having a little over 200 pages worth of material, only quick looks at a broad body of poetry are offered. The introduction, as well, does not move beyond the realm of common knowledge on the subject, and will leave people who already have a base of information handy wanting more.

Overall, the translations are not terrible, but they are also not wonderful. The choice always needs to be made between getting across a poetic feel and portraying all of the nuances contained in a poem. Although the translations are easy to read, it would have helped to have footnotes or some other guide to glean further information from.

The bottom line: great for the dabbler, lacking for the student.

I stumbled across this book at a garage sale in southside Chicago. Though then 15 years old, it still had its cellophane wrapping intact. I pity the people who had it for so long and never peeked in, because it is a beautiful collection of poetry. It samples a wide range, from around 1000 a.d. to the 20th century (much of it tanka and haiku). At around 200 pages the book is a bit short for the task, but what is here is superbly rendered, and many of these poems can fill an afternoon with reveries. I have taken this book with me everwhere.

Enright in his novel portrays his Egyptian characters as type characters lacking essential individuality; they carry certain race typicality. They hold no status higher than that of maimed beggars, slavish servants, stupid servants, wild savages, swindling peddlers, ruthless murderers, ugly prostitutes as if there were all the people one is likely to encounter in Enright's Egypt. He calls them primitives, beasts, barbarians, and even satanic creatures. Moreover, Academic Year contains the negative stereotypes that embody all the vices traditionally associated with the oriental female: stupidity, ignorance, materialism, sensuality, and emotional detachment to the extent of claiming that prostitution in Egypt tells one about the position of women in Egypt. In addition, all through the novel Enright is fond of comparing the `primitive' Egypt to the `civilized' England. Such a comparative method is but a disguised racial prejudice.

Enright implicitly criticizes the Egyptian stupid nationalism which gives them the right to rule their own country without any British claiming that they are lacking or even devoid of ` strength of character, independence, governing capacity, discipline, self control and even sense of responsibility.

The `bloody' riots that take place in Egypt are a point of interest for Enright to describe although he did not mention the real motives behind such demonstrations. Violence seems in his opinion, to give vent to their suppressed, perverted feelings and innate ruthlessness as if they enjoy disasters and blood.

Meanwhile, he ridicules the educational system in Egypt embodied in the feverish rituals of the final examinations, the force of oral examinations, the process of duplicating and marking the papers. He contents that such a `great' literature as the English literature should be taught to a race whose literature is next to nothing, and alludes to the great part which England has performed in the work of `enlightening modern Egypt'- a legacy of the common occidental mission to the orient.

His hostility to the Islam and the Muslims is very clear in the novel. He paints a picture which shows how Muslims are incapable of telling the truth or even of seeing it; they are fanatic and fatalistic, they are swayed by passions, instincts and unreflecting hatred of Christians and Jews. His hostility is clear from the titles of each chapter which are lines of verse from the holy Quran using them in an ironic way or as an ironic commentary on the content of each chapter.

Enright's tone has the vein of the high-handed attitude of nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century European orientalism. His selection of incidents, language in narration, omission of certain details suggest attitudes and assumptions stemming from the cleverly-concealed prejudice and help to dramatize a contrast in the perceived characteristics of the race. He deliberately omits the good aspects of the Egyptian society. He fashions a technique allowing the reader only a single-faceted response towards the Egyptians. He leaves no space for the reader to comment but is commenting all through the novel. Though the novel is narrated in the third person singular, his voice is very clear in the novel.

Being a member in the Movement, Enright uses many of the aesthetics of the Movement in his novels. His attitude to the political realities of modern Egypt seems typical of the Movement, an attitude of disgust that one lives in barbarous bloody times. It is an anti-romantic novel depicting reality as it is. His disbelief in allusion and myth represents a important current of feeling within the Movement. His treatment of Egypt is concerned not with metaphysical absolutes or mythical assumptions but with hard-bitten realities and human relations. The Movement's ideology is reflected in Enright's debunking familiarizing treatment of nature; he condemns any appearance of nature-worship. The language he uses for describing landscape is extremely conventional. However, towards the middle of the novel he gets enchanted with the seascape embodied in the Mediterranean Sea.