This masterly edition contains all of Milton's English poems, with the exception of Paradise Lost, together with translations and texts of all his Latin, Italian and Greek poems. First published in 1968 - and substantially updated in 1996 - John Carey's edition has, with Alastair Fowler's Paradise Lost, established itself as the pre-eminent edition of Milton's poetry, both for the student and the general reader. Hailed as 'a very Bible of a Milton', the extensive notes and headnotes serve to illuminate the wealth of Milton's allusions and to synthesize the judgements and disagreements of a bewildering array of modern critics. Each headnote sets out details of composition and context which will deepen any reader's appreciation of the poetry, while also providing a concise overview of the critical and scholarly debates that continue to flame around the work of one of the greatest poets in the English language. Steeped in learning though it undoubtedly is, it is also an unfailing light to those who wish to plot their own path through the dazzling riches of Milton's imagination.

Although known best for his sweeping allegorical epic "The Faerie Queen," Edmund Spenser wrote a number of other significant poems. His first major poetical work "The Shepherd's Calendar" begins this collection of his "Selected Shorter Poems." An emulation of Virgil's "Eclogues," "The Shepherd's Calendar" depicts the life of shepherd Colin Clout through the twelve months of his year. The twelve eclogues of the poem, each named after a different month, discuss abuses of the church, offer praise for Queen Elizabeth, and reveal the struggles of a lonely shepherd. Also included in this edition of Spenser's poetry are the following poems: "The Ruins of Time," "Prosopopoia," "Muiopotmos," "Colin Clout's Come Home Again," "Amoretti," and "Epithalamion."

The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare's Poetry contains thirty-eight original essays written by leading Shakespeareans around the world. Collectively, these essays seek to return readers to a revivified understanding of Shakespeare's verbal artistry in both the poems and the drama. The volume understands poetry to be not just a formal category designating a particular literary genre but to be inclusive of the dramatic verse as well, and of Shakespeare's influence as a poet on later generations of writers in English and beyond. Focusing on a broad set of interpretive concerns, the volume tackles general matters of Shakespeare's style, earlier and later; questions of influence from classical, continental, and native sources; the importance of words, line, and rhyme to meaning; the significance of songs and ballads in the drama; the place of gender in the verse, including the relationship of Shakespeare's poetry to the visual arts; the different values attached to speaking 'Shakespeare' in the theatre; and the adaptation of Shakespearean verse (as distinct from performance) into other periods and languages. The largest section, with ten essays, is devoted to the poems themselves: the Sonnets, plus 'A Lover's Complaint', the narrative poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, and 'The Phoenix and the Turtle'. If the volume as a whole urges a renewed involvement in the complex matter of Shakespeare's poetry, it does so, as the individual essays testify, by way of responding to critical trends and discoveries made during the last three decades.

The Colbeck collection was formed over half a century ago by the Bournemouth bookseller Norman Colbeck. Focusing primarily on British essayists and poets of the nineteenth century from the Romantic Movement through the Edwardian era, the collection features nearly 500 authors and lists over 13,000 works. Entries are alphabetically arranged by author with copious notes on the condition and binding of each copy. Nine appendices provide listings of selected periodicals, series publications, anthologies, yearbooks, and topical works.

Stephen Hamrick demonstrates how poets writing in the first part of Elizabeth I's reign proved instrumental in transferring Catholic worldviews and paradigms to the cults and early anti-cults of Elizabeth. Stephen Hamrick provides a detailed analysis of poets who used Petrarchan poetry to transform many forms of Catholic piety, ranging from confession and transubstantiation to sacred scriptures and liturgical singing, into a multivocal discourse used to fashion, refashion, and contest strategic political, religious, and courtly identities for the Queen and for other Court patrons. These poets, writers previously overlooked in many studies of Tudor culture, include Barnabe Googe, George Gascoigne, and Thomas Watson. Stephen Hamrick here shows that the nature of the religious reformations in Tudor England provided the necessary contexts required for Petrarchanism to achieve its cultural centrality and artistic complexity. This study makes a strong contribution to our understanding of the complex interaction among Catholicism, Petrachanism, and the second English Reformation.