The Cambridge Companion to English Poetry, Donne to Marvell

Poetry of the early seventeenth century set in its cultural and ideological context.

Thomas N. Corns (Edited by)

9780521423090, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 18 November 1993

328 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.546 kg

"...one of the signal virtues of this fine collection is its expert blend of traditional and novel approaches. The entire collection attests at once to the interpretive power of a currently unfashionable mode of criticism that pays attention to genre and provides cogency to the current emphasis on the material transmission of books and manuscripts. One emerges from the collection not with the sense of the enormous distance separating new and old approaches but rather with a refreshing picture of the contiguity of new and old....A fine introduction to the field for ambitious undergraduates and beginning graduate students, it contains more than enough novelty to sustain the interest of specialists." Michael Schoenfeldt, Renaissance Quarterly

English poetry in the first half of the seventeenth century is an outstandingly rich and varied body of verse, which can be understood and appreciated more fully when set in its cultural and ideological context. This student Companion, consisting of fourteen new introductory essays by scholars of international standing, informs and illuminates the poetry by providing close reading of texts and an exploration of their background. There are individual studies of Donne, Jonson, Herrick, Herbert, Carew, Suckling, Lovelace, Milton, Crashaw, Vaughan and Marvell. More general essays describe the political and religious context of the poetry, explore its gender politics, explain the material circumstances of its production and circulation, trace its larger role in the development of genre and tradition, and relate it to contemporary rhetorical expectation. Overall the Companion provides an indispensable guide to the texts and contexts of early-seventeenth-century English poetry.

Chronology
Part I. The Context: 1. Politics and religion David Loewenstein
2. The politics of gender Elaine Hobby
3. Manuscript, print, and the social history of the lyric Arthur F. Marroti
4. Genre and tradition Alastair Fowler
5. Rhetoric Brian Vickers
Part II. Some Poets: 6. John Donne Achsah Guibbory
7. Ben Jonson Richard Helgerson
8. Robert Herrick Leah S. Marcus
9. George Herbert Helen Wilcox
10. Thomas Carew, Sir John Suckling and Richard Lovelace Thomas N. Corns
11. John Milton: the early works Michael Wilding
12. Richard Crashaw Anthony Low
13. Henry Vaughan Jonathan Post
14. Andrew Marvell Donald M. Friedman.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: poetry & poets [DSC]