Hesiod (Work and Days) and Virgil’s Georgics set the scene in the early pages with their poetry about farming, while nymphs and shepherds cavort through the Arcadian landscapes of Theocritus, ushering in the pastoral genre. Appropriately the book ends with Alice Oswald, whose much admired nature poetry reflects the influence of classical poets.
From Chaucer onwards English poetry is full of the countryside. Here are plenty of fine examples from major poets, including Shakespeare, Spenser and Sidney; Jonson and Milton; Pope, Gray and Blake; Tennyson, Hopkins and Housman; Robert Frost, Edward Thomas, Ivor Gurney and Dylan Thomas. Alongside them, editor Paul Quarrie has placed some delightful gems from poets less well-known – Ambrose Philips’s ‘Description of Winter’, Margaret Cavendish’s ‘A Landscape’, James Henry’s ‘The Pleasure of Pigeons’ and poems by Felicia Hemans, Charlotte Mew, John Davidson and Kim Taplin, to name but a few.
A lively choice of folk songs and anonymous poems about farming life adds to the mix, as do telling extracts from longer poems penned in the 18th century - the peak period for rural poetry.
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