The Broadview Anthology Of Poetry Second Edition

Working With The Broadview Anthology Of Poetry Second Edition

The Broadview Anthology of Poetry, Second Edition is one of those academic collections that keeps showing up in course syllabi. It covers British and American poetry from the medieval period through the twentieth century, with substantial critical apparatus attached to each text. The annotations are thorough. The headnotes provide historical and biographical context. There are also selection notes and general introductions at the start of each section. I've used this anthology for teaching and for my own reference over the years, so I'll walk through how it actually functions as a working tool rather than just a reading book.

Getting Your Hands On The Broadview Anthology Of Poetry Second Edition

The book is published by Broadview Press. You can order it directly from their website or through any major bookseller. It's available in paperback and sometimes in an ebook format depending on the region. If you're looking for a free digital copy, that typically won't be legitimate since it's a copyrighted academic publication. There are library reserves at most universities that carry it. Some instructors also put course readings on course reserve systems like ReserveIt or Talamh. I spent more money than I should have on a used copy from a student who highlighted half the anthology in yellow marker. Don't make that mistake. Buy new or get it from a library. The marginalia in used copies is distracting when you're trying to focus on a poem.

How The Anthology Is Structured

The Second Edition is organized chronologically and thematically. Each major period gets an introduction written by Peter Stockwell, the editor. The sections run roughly from early English and Middle English poetry through the Renaissance, Restoration and Eighteenth Century, Romantics, Victorians, and Modern and Contemporary periods. There are also thematic subsections within these broader groupings. What distinguishes this anthology from competitors like Norton or Oxford is the level of critical annotation. Each poem comes with endnotes that explain archaic vocabulary, literary allusions, historical references, and metrical features. The headnotes give background on the poet and the circumstances of composition. This matters because many of the poems included date from periods with very different conventions from contemporary poetry.

Using The Annotations Effectively

Here's where people tend to misuse this book. They read the poem once, skip the notes, and move on. That's backwards. The annotations are the main value here. The broad critical apparatus is what makes this anthology worth the price of admission over cheaper options. Read the headnote before you read the poem. It will tell you why this particular work was included, what context matters, and what questions the editor wants you to be asking. Then read the poem slowly. After that, go through the notes line by line if needed. You don't have to read every single note on every single poem, but skimming them tells you what the editorial team considers significant. I ran into a specific issue last year when a student asked me about the dating of certain poems in the anthology. Some manuscripts were composed earlier than their printed dates suggest, and the anthology includes notes about textual uncertainty in a few cases. The workaround I found was to cross-reference with the Shorter Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entries listed in the bibliography and check the manuscript sources cited in the notes. It added about twenty minutes to the research process but saved us from citing incorrect dates in a paper.

The Critical Apparatus And Further Reading

At the end of each section, there's a "Further Reading" list. These are curated selections of criticism and scholarly work relevant to the period. They're not exhaustive. They're not meant to be. But they point you toward the actual academic conversations happening around these texts. The index is usable but not comprehensive. It covers authors and some key terms. If you're searching for a specific poem and can't find it, check the table of contents for the relevant period. The anthology includes some lesser-known poets alongside the major figures, and the organization isn't always intuitive for that reason.

Limitations You Should Know About

This anthology has real limitations. The selection is heavily weighted toward British and North American poetry. There is comparatively little material from the global south, postcolonial traditions, or indigenous poetry. If your course or research requires more diversity in representation, you'll need a supplementary reader. The Norton Anthology of World Literature or the New Anthology of Modern Poetry from Around the World would fill some of these gaps. The Second Edition also has a known issue with pagination differences between the print and ebook versions. Citations from one format don't always match the other. If you're writing a paper and need to cite page numbers, stick to one format throughout. I learned that the hard way when a reviewer pointed out inconsistent pagination in my footnote system. It took me an afternoon to fix. The price is also a factor. At current retail, this is a relatively expensive textbook. If you're on a budget, consider the earlier editions. The First Edition covers much of the same ground with slightly different selections. The differences between editions are not so large that they'd matter for most undergraduate courses. The Second Edition adds contemporary voices and updates some of the critical framework, but core poems remain largely the same.

Who Should Use This Anthology

This works well for undergraduate survey courses in British and American literature. The annotations are detailed enough to support close reading without being overwhelming. The editorial approach assumes readers are encountering many of these poems for the first time, which means definitions and explanations are included rather than assumed. For graduate-level work, you'll need more specialized collections. The Broadview editions are reference-grade but not substitute for journal articles or monographs. I've seen students cite only from this anthology in graduate seminars and it doesn't read like serious scholarship. Pair it with the primary texts where possible and the further reading lists provided here. The anthology also functions as a solid reference for anyone doing independent study. The chronological organization makes it easy to trace developments across periods. The headnotes provide enough context to understand how poetic forms evolved without requiring you to read a separate history of English literature first. That said, the historical framing is somewhat traditional and doesn't always challenge conventional periodization in useful ways.