John Dolan takes a new approach to the evolution of the modern English lyric, emphasising the way in which several generations of poets, reacting to post-Reformation readers' dislike for invented poetic narratives, competed for the right to commemorate important public occasions and slowly expanded the range of acceptable occasion. This book demonstrates that many fundamental features of a typical modern lyric actually evolved as responses to the limitations of occasional poetry.

Where others have oriented Wordsworth towards ideas of transcendence, nature worship, or - more recently - political repression, Paul H. Fry argues that underlying all this is a more fundamental insight - Wordsworth is most astonished not that the world he experiences has any particular qualities, but rather that it simply exists.

Collection of poems about London, organized chronologically from John Gower (14th century) to Ahren Warner (1986-)

A critical look at three fundamental Romantic poets from a leading scholar of British romanticism