Author Description

The seventeenth century saw some of the great achievements in the English language. Milton wrote Paradise Lost, Donne composed his Metaphysical verse, and Shakespeare his late Romances, not to mention the work of Dryden, Marvell, Jonson, and many others. Now, this remarkable quantity of extraordinary literature has been brought together here in one large volume. Like the previous edition, all of the best known works are present, but this new edition also responds to considerable changes in scholarship and perspective in recent years. Popular and minor poets take a place alongside their more well known peers. Alastair Fowler, the collection's distinguished editor, has included a generous portion of poetry by women, as well as a sampling of American colonial verse, while also striking a balance between Metaphysical and Jonsonian poetry.