The Cambridge Companion to English Poetry, Donne to MarvellThomas N. Corns 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. |
Contents
Politics and religion | 3 |
The politics of gender | 31 |
Manuscript print and the social history of the lyric | 52 |
Genre and tradition | 80 |
Rhetoric | 101 |
John Donne | 123 |
Ben Jonson | 148 |
Robert Herrick | 171 |
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Andrew Marvell anthologies Ben Jonson Birth Brian Vickers Cambridge Carew celebrate Charles Christ church Clarendon Press classical collection court critical Cromwell culture death desire devotion divine Donne's doth edition elegies England English Civil War English Poetry epigram Essays expression figures Forest garden genre George Herbert georgic God's Henry Henry Vaughan Hesperides human James John Donne John Milton Jonson Katherine Philips King language lines literary Literature London Lord Lovelace lover Lycidas lyric manuscript Marvell's masque metaphors Milton miscellanies mistress monarch muse Noble Numbers Oxford paradox pastoral poem's poems poet poet's poetic political praise prose Protestant Puritan reader religious Renaissance rhetoric Richard Crashaw Robert Herrick royalist satiric sense seventeenth century sexual Sidney social Songs and Sonets sonnet soul speaker spiritual stanza Stuart Suckling sweet Temple texts thee Thomas Thomas Carew thou tion tradition University Press Vaughan virtue William woman women writing