Engaging, Informative, Inspiring

This is an accessible and compellingly narrated introduction to the history of poetry. Some have accused Whitfield of shallowness for his sparing analyses, but his central aim is synthesis, not analysis. His goal is to lay out the great drama of evolving style in English poetry and, in this, he succeeds. If you are an aspiring poet, here is a perfect opportunity to think through issues of form and content, as writers across the centuries have grappled with them. True, the extracts are often too short, but it forms a perfect companion to a good anthology (such as Norton’s).

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Didactic

I love the fact that I can't deny how much I have learned from this book! a lot.

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An Ideal Gateway Into The World Of English Poetry.

As a novice in the field and history of poetry. I found this introduction both informative and inspiring. The overall narration by Derek Jacobi was as brilliant, as you would expect. The poetry readings by various artists were good.
A number of commenters have pointed out the books limitations, such as its infrequent female voices and I would add to this its failure to include poetry from the multicultural world, that the English language has been part of for several centuries. However, that said I have been encouraged by this book to continue the poetic journey and make those and other discoveries along the way.

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Enchanting, informative, re-awakened a love

My interest in poetry had waned in recent years but listening to this book has inspired me to seek out more, Blake, Tennyson, Plath the full canon. My imagination has been restoked.

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4 people found this helpful

Great survey of poetry

This book covers a brief history of English poetry from beowulf to the 1960's encompassimg English and American poets. Lucid commentary and good readings from Jacob. Could have done with a little more poetry and less commentary perhaps. But you certainly get the sweep of history and poetic movements. Peters out after modernism, thankfully because who wants a disjointed narrative of postmodernism.

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2 people found this helpful

A useful overview but opinionated and shallow.

This gives a useful broad view of the whole of English poetry but nothing more imo. Given its breadth it might be forgiven for its lack of depth but the writer is opinionated too and this combination results in some startling admissions of lack of understanding. He says that Ted Hughes’ poetry, for example, is about violence in animals and doesn’t mean much beyond that. Really, Hughes’ poetry challenges human moral pretension and anthropocentrism by presenting unsentimental but inspiring vignettes of nature, I.e. of reality. This is pretty significant, I think. The writer says several times that given writings are difficult to understand these days, as if this is their fault, so this underestimation of what he writes about is not limited to Hughes but is a general characteristic of the book. There are no close analyses or observations about actual pieces of poetry either, which adds to the sense of shallowness and accentuates the impression of opinionatedness. The reading by Derek Jacobi is very good but the hammy readings of American poetry are hopeless.

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8 people found this helpful

An Excellent introduction

I was expecting an anthology but this is a narrative history of the arts with examples read to illustrate the story. For a person like me who has little understanding of poetry this reaally gives a great overview. It is very well read by the narrator as well. It left me wanting to listen to more poetry

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22 people found this helpful

profoundly illuminating and worth every penny

I struggled to understand poetry before this book but brilliantly explained and narrated a revelation

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6 people found this helpful

For Those With a Serious Interest in the Subject

Would you listen to The History of English Poetry again? Why?

Yes, but only to dip in and out of parts that might be relevant.

What other book might you compare The History of English Poetry to, and why?

A Way With Words IV By Prof Michael D.C Drout. Some of the same ground is covered, but from different angles.

What does Derek Jacobi bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

He brings to life what might otherwise be quite dry.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No - Far too long for that and I also wanted to seek out some of the poets mentioned.

Any additional comments?

It's a good history to & introduction. Not all of it is appealing to me, but there's a lot packed in & is a good introduction. I was a little surprised by the detour to the USA & I'm not convinced it's relevancy back to English poetry was totally smooth.

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4 people found this helpful

mesmerising

As someone who likes poetry but never studied it I found this audio book superb
I learnt so much discovered truly outstanding works all delivered by a fantastic narrator whose voice was sublime

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1 person found this helpful