Book Description
Imagine if Billboard compiled a list of the top 100 poems, chosen not by critics or professors but by the people themselves. That's the concept behind The Classic Hundred, and it works brilliantly. William Harmon found the 100 most anthologized poems in English, based on the ninth edition of The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetrythe most objective measurement of greatness available, representing consensus among the editors of some 400 anthologies. Then he put them in order and prefaced each one with concise, erudite, often humorous commentary. The range of poets, subjects, and formsfrom Shakespeare to Frost, from love and death to crime and punishment, from sonnets to odesmakes this an entertaining, enlightening, and indispensable aural guide to the finest verse in the English language. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Share this audio version with your beloved
"A safe sweet and secure present for Valentine's day or any special occasion.If you cannot read poetry aloud with conviction then share this audio version with your beloved."

A great resource
I love listening to this cassette while I drive!I think the commentary is first rate, insightful and learned.I find the readers, who are generally great poets in their own right, sensitive and the readings clear and nuanced.

Readers are AWful not AWEful
Every review here is correct.The readers are amazingly inept.It's hard to believe that the publisher thought this was working.Any average, passionate, good reader would have done so much better.It's very sad.I really wanted to like this work.

Embarrassingly bad readings
In this age of sight and sound, one might hope for a renewed interest in poetry read aloud.After all, your average Ipod can store all the world's great poetry.Any such prospect will quickly be extinguished if there are many productions as bad as this one.At first I thought the readers had been chosen in accordance with some manic diversity template, without the slightest concern for whether they could actually read poetry with even minimal competence.In fact, this project was not ruined by political correctness (though that would be typical these days).Instead, the readers are poets themselves.This is a perennially tempting, and invariably bad, idea.The gift of writing poetry is utterly distinct from the gift of reading it.(Perhaps this is the one arena where the deconstructionists are right:here, the "reader" is as important as the writer.)The truths, and the feelings embodied in these poems would be far better conveyed by professional actors or readers; o for a Derek Jacoby, or a Kenneth Branagh, or a Michael York, to substitute for these awful readers.Give these discs to your child in high school if you want to ensure that he or she will never, ever want to read, or hear, another poem.

Absolute garbage
I can't believe that anyone found a good word to say about this production of poetic vandalism. It's more than bad, it's criminal,and I, for one, would certainly agree that some of the readers sound as if they might have recently escaped from some institution. How bad is it? Well, I've bought more than one set, which might sound contradictory. However, the reason that one set wasn't enough is that I keep giving my cassettes away as warnings, as jokes, and just to share what must be the absolutely worst set of readings ever recorded. This, of course, means that I have to replace them, because something this bad is precious. Anyway, to be more specific, the problem is with the reading of the poems. To be fair, the best of the of the lot reach mediocrity, but the worst....well, they bring a new meaning to "apalling." Some ot the readers do try, and some of them have a vague idea of how to read poetry, but some of them, one with a Pulitizer prize for poetry! sound like they're reading the yellow pages in a language they don't understand. Do yourself a favor. Unless you delight in the perverse, or would like to have something to contribute to the Guiness Book of Records, don't buy this set. ... Read more

Book Description
In Two Volumes. ... Read more