A Book of Love Poetry

From the civilization of the Lower Nile to that of the Lower Hudson, more poets have written more convincingly, more poignantly about love than about any other subject. Jon Stallworthy has here selected some of the most moving, funny, shameless, and erotic love poems in the English language. Representing the work of more than 190 poets, from Sappho to Byron and Browning, from Rossetti to Wordsworth and E. E. Cummings, he offers a startling collection of love poetry down throughout the ages. Arranged thematically, beginning with the first dawnings of young love and ending with the “long look back” of the aged, and revealing love in all its different aspects and perversities, this anthology demonstrates vividly man’s changeless responses to the changing seasons of the heart. About the Editor: Jon Stallworthy is John Wendell Anderson Professor of English Literature at Cornell University and author of Wilfred Owen and editor of The Oxford Book of War Poetry .