Resumen
Resumen de La vieja y dulce canción del amor
Para quién es
This book will please readers who love short lyrics, garden and season imagery, and the sweet ache of remembered love. It suits anyone who enjoys reading poems aloud and discovering lesser-known poets beside famous ones.
De qué trata este libro
Love's Old Sweet Song is an anthology of love poems by modern British and American poets, gathered by George H. Ellwanger. It opens with a short envoy and a foreword in which the compiler explains his choices. He picks lyrics from living writers and recent ones, favours songs that readers may not know, and keeps the sonnet to a small share. Only a few poems are translations from the French and the Italian.
In the foreword he sets the new singers beside the Elizabethan masters, and he argues that love itself has not changed, only the way poets sing of it. The tone is mostly lyrical, with the minor keys leading. You will meet well-known names such as Tennyson, Swinburne, Rossetti, Browning and Yeats beside poets few readers have heard of. Let us begin with the poems of memory and absence.
En este resumen
- 1The Compiler's Aim and TasteFree
- 2Memory and the Ghosts of Old Love
- 3Seasons as the Mirror of the Heart
- 4Longing, Courtship and Delight
- 5Parting, Loss and Death
- 6Forms, Sounds and How to Read Aloud
Idea clave 1 de 6
The Compiler's Aim and Taste
Ellwanger begins with a foreword about what he has chosen and why. He says every anthology must reflect the personal taste of its maker, and he does not apologize for adding another. He wants to bring readers lyrics they might otherwise miss, because few people can own or read the many volumes in which they are scattered.
He draws his poems from modern writers, most of them still living when he gathered them. He leaves out verses that are too long, too often reprinted, or too light, such as the polished society verse of the drawing room. He also leaves out poems he finds too free in theme for this book.
He compares the new singers with Waller, Herrick, Jonson, Marvell and Carew. He does not claim that the moderns sing better. He says the old songs have the approval of centuries, while the new songs still wait for time to judge them.
His main claim is gentle. Poets pass away, he says, but love is always new, and so there will always be fresh chords to sound. That idea runs quietly under every poem that follows.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Questions about La vieja y dulce canción del amor
What is Love's Old Sweet Song about?
It is an anthology of short love poems by modern British and American poets, gathered by George H. Ellwanger. The poems cover longing, courtship, parting, memory and loss, and most are lyrics meant to be heard as well as read.
Who are the poets in Love's Old Sweet Song?
The poets include Tennyson, Swinburne, Browning, Christina and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Andrew Lang, Austin Dobson, William Morris, W. E. Henley and W. B. Yeats, along with many lesser-known writers of the time.
Are there translated poems in the collection?
Yes, a few. The compiler says translation is an art, so he includes only some, such as Félix Arvers' sonnet, de Nerval's An Old Tune, and Villon's ballade about last year's snows.
Is Love's Old Sweet Song easy to read?
Most poems are short and built on clear images such as roses, birds and gardens, so you can read one at a time. Refrains and strong rhythms make many of them pleasant to read aloud.
What is the main message of the collection?
The compiler holds that love stays the same in essence from age to age, while each generation finds new songs for it. The poems show joy, doubt, parting and memory as parts of one feeling.