English Lyric Poetry

The first comprehensive reassessment of lyric poetry of the early seventeenth-century, Jonathan Post seeks to assimilate many of the post-New Critical theoretical concerns with readings of the major and minor, male and female, authors of this intensely creatuve period. Donne, Jonson, the Spenserians, Herbert, Vaughan, Milton, Marvell as well as Cavalier and women poets, all receive sustained, fresh, detailed analysis. In widening the scope of critical commentary, this lively and engaging literary history avoids the limitations of much recent criticism as it explores the imaginative life of the lyric in this era.