This decidedly Medievalizing poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti s probably the best-known example of Pre-Raphaelite poetry. The P-R Brotherhood was a group of painters who challenged the Royal Academy by insisting on natural light, painting from nature, and meticulous care. They quite rightly deplored the excessive sentimentality and melodrama that had dominated painting since the early days of the Italian Manerists.
Two fine poems by Matthew Arnold who bravely spent his life upholding decency and high standards in a world that was abandoning them.
Three quite different poems on the New Year, by Richard Wilbur, Kenneth Patchen, and Lord Tennyson
This song, which inspired Lawrence Block’s novel “When the Sacred Ginmill Closes,” is not for young people or the faint of heart, but it is carefully composed. Block and Van Ronk were good friends, and both were alcoholics.
This is one of the best known poems by the brilliant and mostly unread Harold Hart Crane. It may take more than one or two reading to catch on to his manner, though the musical beauty strikes the ear immediately.
Thomas Campion was a master of verse and beautiful composer of the Elizabethan period. Known mostly for his sometimes racy love songs, he had many voices and moods. Be sure to listen to Alfred Deller’s moving performance.
Although largely forgotten these days, John Gould Fletcher was a very famous poet in the 1920s, and it was a great coup for the Southern Agrarians to have included his essay on Southern education in I’ll Take My Stand.
