The Metaphysical Poets

By: Helen Gardner

Length: 43 mins

Publisher's summary

The metaphysical poets were a loose group of British lyric poets of the 17th century. In this collection read by Sir Cedric Harwicke, Robert Newton and David Moore are poems by John Donne, Robert Southwell, Richard Crawshaw, George Herbert, Henry Vaughan and Andrew Marvell.

©2011 Saland Publishing (P)2011 Saland Publishing

MYSTERY compendium, no idea which poem/poet.

Very old recording? Audio quality is bad and very uneven. Most sounds like I am listening to someone from a pulpit (it has that hallow, echoing quality). I suppose the feeling of the church like setting is not out of place to some of the poems, but for some the quality is so degraded it does mean that some words/phrases I cannot catch at all (for example Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" has a few words that sounds like it was a recording of scratched LP). Then, with no warning, the narrator will be much louder. One of the narrators, unfortunately the clearest, gives no tone to the poems, as if he has no understanding of what he is reading.

BUT what is worse, I have NO IDEA which poem or poet I am listening to. It just runs from one poem into the next, no introduction, no mention of which poet or poem I am about to hear. Some of the narrators are so similar I cannot easily tell when one poem has finished and another started.

Helen Gardner's excellently edited book (out of print now) had over 200 poems and a very enlightening introduction. Which makes the deficiencies of this audio book the more disappointing.