Is there a 'start with the poets' list? Also, how

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hi

Literature?
>start with the Greeks
Poetry?
>start with the Greeks
English Poetry?
>start with the Elizabethans

It's not uncommonly said that Shakespeare (the dramas) and Milton are the only English poets worth reading.

>>9174344
OP here. I know, but whenever I see recommended poetry I always end up reading about quaint scenes in the bottom of gardens and it puts me off.

Read aloud and in rhythm

>>9174344
What about Ossian? It was considered an equal of Homer at the time it came out

>>9174344
What about Blake?

>>9174352
The romantics can be pretty saccharine, but not all poetry is like that.
I recommend getting the bloom anthology and finding what you like.
This is a poem by Browning.

The rain set early in to-night,
The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
And did its worst to vex the lake:
I listened with heart fit to break.
When glided in Porphyria; straight
She shut the cold out and the storm,
And kneeled and made the cheerless grate
Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;
Which done, she rose, and from her form
Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,
And laid her soiled gloves by, untied
Her hat and let the damp hair fall,
And, last, she sat down by my side
And called me. When no voice replied,
She put my arm about her waist,
And made her smooth white shoulder bare,
And all her yellow hair displaced,
And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,
And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair,
Murmuring how she loved me — she
Too weak, for all her heart's endeavour,
To set its struggling passion free
From pride, and vainer ties dissever,
And give herself to me for ever.
But passion sometimes would prevail,
Nor could to-night's gay feast restrain
A sudden thought of one so pale
For love of her, and all in vain:
So, she was come through wind and rain.
Be sure I looked up at her eyes
Happy and proud; at last I knew
Porphyria worshipped me; surprise
Made my heart swell, and still it grew
While I debated what to do.
That moment she was mine, mine, fair,
Perfectly pure and good: I found
A thing to do, and all her hair
In one long yellow string I wound
Three times her little throat around,
And strangled her. No pain felt she;
I am quite sure she felt no pain.
As a shut bud that holds a bee,
I warily oped her lids: again
Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.
And I untightened next the tress
About her neck; her cheek once more
Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:
I propped her head up as before,
Only, this time my shoulder bore
Her head, which droops upon it still:
The smiling rosy little head,
So glad it has its utmost will,
That all it scorned at once is fled,
And I, its love, am gained instead!
Porphyria's love: she guessed not how
Her darling one wish would be heard.
And thus we sit together now,
And all night long we have not stirred,
And yet God has not said a word!

>>9174344
>It's not uncommonly said that Shakespeare (the dramas) and Milton are the only English poets worth reading.
And they would be wrong

>>9174344
>only two poets are worth reading

OP, follow this advice if you want to be a stuck up asshole with no perspective on poetry. People normally do this out of no concern for poetry qua poetry but rather to seem well read.

Other wise just experiment. All the big names got big for a reason (even if sometimes it is because of post-hoc academic hypebeasts). If you don't take to one try another until you find something you like and look at other people in that poets niche.

If you dont know how to read poetry, yhen pick up an entry level college textbook. It will use famous poems as edifices for aspects of poetic craft.

Also, sage as this question is answered every 3 days and people should use the archives.

The Norton Anthology is all you need.
After that, just get the opuses from the ones you really liked

>>9174319
>how the fuck do I know what is good and what is not
The stuff you enjoy is good
Your taste will develop as you read more

>>9174488
>opuses
I think you mean opera

>>9174493

>enjoy

Pleb detected

>>9174503
That's what i said

>>9174506
I only enjoy the best.
But OP, obviously a pleb, would likely not like the stuff I read. He has to start somewhere and work his way up to being a patrician. That's why I said his taste will develop.

>>9174344
>It's not uncommonly said that Shakespeare (the dramas) and Milton are the only English poets worth reading.

I think you should quite honestly kill yourself, you are too stupid to save

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>>9174319
Aristotle - Poethics

>>9174319
Just listen to Eminem.

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>>9174319
I know what you mean anon.

The problem is that you picked up Turdsworth.

Byron's poems are full of homoeroticism, battles, gay sex, spanish women, arabs, turks, mountaineers.

I recommend based Byron.

>>9174344
>It's not uncommonly said that Shakespeare (the dramas) and Milton are the only English poets worth reading.
This is either a troll or you are genuinely retarded.

>>9174319
Rilke, Eliot, ???? Maybe read the second coming I guess.

In that order. That is all you need from poetry.

And get the Snow translations of Rilke. Nothing else does him justice.

>>9175624
But actually this just teaches you about what makes tragedy good. Totally worth it though.

>>9177111
>Reading poetry for the narrative.
What the fuck is wrong with you?

>>9177333
>he doesn't like narrative poetry

Yeah fuck. Milton, Dante, Homer, Tasso, Shakespeare, fuck them all, right?

Massive pleb alert.

You could and should have attacked me based on my childish love of action instead.

>>9174423
Awful. The only reason I pay him any mind at all is cause Joyce.

Tyger is so terrible. How and Who can read that without feeling embarrassed and dumb.

Look at Rilke tapdancing all over that stooge:

>O how much truer are the animals,
>pacing up and down in their steel cages,
>unrelated to the antics of the new strange
>beings, which they do not understand;
>and they burn out softly like
>a silent fire and subside into themselves,
>indifferent to the new adventure
>and alone with their untouchable blood.

Who can take The Tyger seriously after reading that?

>>9174454
What's your response to this?

>>9177338
sure, fuck em all, why not, they suck dick

>>9177367
Hmph.

No one has suggested Yeats yet. I find his early stuff very approachable, and if that's not enough his later work is very respectable.

>>9174319
Read selections of:
Shakespeare
Pope
Wordsworth
Whitman if you're American
Eliot

Confucius to Cummings is my favorite anthology

>>9174344
>It's not uncommonly said that Shakespeare (the dramas) and Milton are the only English poets worth reading.


This edge is seriously worse than Byron, and Byron was a goddamn edgelord.

>>9177382
We all know about the second coming. what else is good?

>>9174319
get the ABC of Reading by Ezra Pound

>>9177570
I had to go look that up. I actually made the recommendation right before I hit that one, I've been going chronologically. But Crossways has incredibly beautiful language, if you don't mind that it's not really modernist, and in between the two the way that he develops out of his romantic/druidic imagery is interesting in its own right.

>>9177544

sounds like my sex life

>>9174344
They probably mean that they are the only English poets worth reading in translation

>>9177359
Response to what?

Start with the Keats

>>9174344
>only two poets worth reading
No one says that except you. Because you are a poseur and a dilettante

>>9177343
pure pleb taste

you should really just kill yourself