The Cambridge Companion to English Poetry, Donne to Marvell

by Edited by Thomas N. Corns

• ISBN13: 9780521423090
• ISBN10: 0521423090
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1993-11-26
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

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.

Table of Contents

List of contributors	ix	(2)
Preface	xi	(2)
List of abbreviations	xiii	(2)
Chronology	xv
Part one The context	3	(120)
1 Politics and religion	3	(28)
David Loewenstein
2 The politics of gender	31	(21)
Elaine Hobby
3 Manuscript, print, and the social history of the lyric	52	(28)
Arthur F. Marotti
4 Genre and tradition	80	(21)
Alastair Fowler
5 Rhetoric	101	(22)
Brian Vickers
Part two Some poets	123	(181)
6 John Donne	123	(25)
Achsah Guibbory
7 Ben Jonson	148	(23)
Richard Helgerson
8 Robert Herrick	171	(12)
Leah S. Marcus
9 George Herbert	183	(17)
Helen Wilcox
10 Thomas Carew, Sir John Suckling, and Richard Lovelace	200	(21)
Thomas N. Corns
11 John Milton: the early works	221	(21)
Michael Wilding
12 Richard Crashaw	242	(14)
Anthony Low
13 Henry Vaughan	256	(19)
Jonathan F. S. Post
14 Andrew Marvell	275	(29)
Donald M. Friedman
Index	304