The Oxford Book of Narrative Verse (Oxford Books of Verse) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0192141317 ISBN 13: 9780192141316

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1983

Synopsis

Succinctly called "a book of tales of various kinds, romantic, humorous, ghostly, and gory, written at any time over the past six hundred years" by the compilers, Iona Opie and the late Peter Opie, this universally-appealing collection of 59 poems presents a comprehensive literary tradition of narrative verse from Chaucer to Auden.
The anthology includes Pope's "The Rape of the Lock," Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott," Poe's "The Raven," and Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark," along with such twentieth-century narrative classics as G.K. Chesterton's "Lepanto," Robert Frost's "The Code," Marriott Edgar's "The Lion and Albert," and W.H. Auden's "The Ballad of Barnaby." Abridgements and extracts from book-length narratives such as Spenser's The Faerie Queen and Milton's Paradise Lost add to the richness and variety of the collection. The Opies also provide extensive notes which trace the source of the poet's inspiration, whether fact or fiction, and demonstrate how the creative process has transformed that source into a work of art.

About this title

About the Author

About the Editors:
Iona Opie and the late Peter Opie have written numerous other books, including Children's Games in Street and Playground, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren, and The Oxford Book of Children's Verse.

Review

"Iona and Peter Opie...had the brilliant idea of making a collection of the narrative verse which has for so long been part of the background of our imaginative lives. My own reaction to the book has been one of enchantment."--Daily Telegraph (London)

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1983
• ISBN 10: 0192141317
• ISBN 13: 9780192141316
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 420
• Editor: Opie Iona, Opie The Late Peter