Six Centuries of Verse (TV Series) American Pioneers 1849-1910 (1984) User Reviews

Welcome American Voices

[lchadbou-326-26592 · 6/10 · 15 February 2021]

For a US viewer who has been watching this nice series on the history of poetry in English, it makes a refreshing change after a number of episodes on the British poets to suddenly hear some of the verses that emerged in mid to late 19th century America, and it was a good decision to use two Hollywood performers Stacy Keach and Lee Remick to do the readings. Remick does a striking delivery of the text of The Battle Hymn of The Republic,approriately from a church pulpit, so that we can for a change pay attention to the words without the familiar music they were later put to. Keach does a virile outdoor recitation of a selection from Leaves Of Grass the bluntness and directness of which come almost as a shock after the more flowery British poetry we have gotten used to hearing.