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A Little History of Poetry
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
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A Little History of Poetry
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Summary
The Bookseller (UK) Editor's Choice
A vital, engaging, and hugely enjoyable guide to poetry, from ancient times to the present, by one of our greatest champions of literature
What is poetry? If music is sound organized in a particular way, poetry is a way of organizing language. It is language made special so that it will be remembered and valued. It does not always work - over the centuries countless thousands of poems have been forgotten. This little history is about some that have not.
John Carey tells the stories behind the world’s greatest poems, from the oldest surviving one written nearly four thousand years ago to those being written today. Carey looks at poets whose works shape our views of the world, such as Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Whitman, and Yeats. He also looks at more recent poets, like Derek Walcott, Marianne Moore, and Maya Angelou, who have started to question what makes a poem “great” in the first place. This little history shines a light on the richness and variation of the world’s poems - and the elusive quality that makes them all the more enticing.
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What listeners say about A Little History of Poetry
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Dermot Shearer
- 03-01-21
recommended
An enjoyable race through (mostly) English poetry. I'd have preferred more quotations though. Something of a menu to make you start reading the poets in depth...
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Stephen McGlennon
- 01-05-20
Brilliant.
An absolutely wonderful book, well written and well read. Will listen again. And again, probably
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 10-08-23
Great read through
very well narrated book. Good balance of quotations and facts, coupled with a fair perspective and opinion.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 17-02-21
A good little poetry primer
Nothing too fancy, but short chapters give a clear account of the great poets of different periods and movements.
As that great poet Ron Seal famously put it "It does. What it says. On the tin."
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 25-05-21
Not for audiobooks
I don't have any specific complain. This content is probably not best in audiobook format. I'll try it as a reading book some day. For now, I didn't finish it.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- John M
- 10-07-20
Name Checking Exercise
This audio-book is spread so widely and thinly it becomes transparent.
There is no cohesive narrative. The content is a name-checking exercise with occasional quotes and an abundance of irritating date references. It is carefully edited to ensure full compliance with the woke movement.
A final moan; Oscar Wilde is described as a British poet. This grated. He was born in Dublin (Ireland). He is an Irish writer. The British may have claimed the boxer Barry McGuigan, but they are not getting Oscar as well.
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8 people found this helpful