Part One

I like the idea of Essential Titles, though my
concept of a canon changes from decade to decade.
So here's a list of mine, with the caveat that
no list can be either representative or exhaustive; it's
making such a list that's instructive...

Propertius- Elegiae (30/16 BC). I know, no one can
consider themselves educated who isn't conversant with
the Aeneid, but for me Propertius is the one essential
poet of Classical Antiquity. He takes all the tools so pain-
stakingly developed by his predecessors, & uses them in
amazingly virtuosic & personal ways. Compared with
Propertius, Catullus (his only rival in the elegy) is heavy
handed & all too direct. Propertius will always be absolutely
up to date. [Note- I use the Loeb edition so i can
refer to the Latin. He has not been served well by trans-
lators, perhaps because they are hard put just to
capture his sense, much less his music. Pound at least
caught a little of his tone...]

Tottel's Miscellany (1557). This is the beginning of
poetry in English, & every song on the radio has its origin
somewhere in here. Shakespeare was of course the
consummate wielder of what might be called "the music
of grammar"--& his study will not be finished in a life-
time--yet this first anthology shows just what he
started with in that long ago era before dictionaries
when the poets really were the makers of speech.

Donne- Songs & Sonnets (1633). Just when the
lyric had been perfected, someone comes along with a
whole new game--combining a philosophical point of
view with the personal note lost for a thousand years--
& we are still trying to duplicate his results.

Baudelaire- Les Fleurs du Mal (1857). The modern
world, with all its alienation & dark glories, rendered
into sonorous & enduring form. There are several decent
translations available; Baudelaire loses surprisingly
little in the process; in that respect he is like Dostoevsky:
the impact of the message continues, like a Molotov
cocktail thrown through a stained glass window...