Reading Eighteenth-Century Poetry recaptures for modern readers the urgency, distinctiveness and rewarding nature of this challenging and powerful body of poetry.

• An essential guide to reading eighteenth-century poetry, written by world-renowned critic, Patricia Meyer Spacks


• Exposes the multiplicity of forms, tones, and topics engaged by poets during this period


• Provides in-depth analysis of poems by established figures such as Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift, as well as work by less familiar figures, including...

Reading Sixteenth-Century Poetry combines close readings of individual poems with a critical consideration of the historical context in which they were written. Informative and original, this book has been carefully designed to enable readers to understand, enjoy, and be inspired by sixteenth-century poetry.

• Close reading of a wide variety of sixteenth-century poems, canonical and non-canonical, by men and by women, from print and manuscript culture, across the major literary modes and genres
• Poems read within their historical context, with reference to five major...

Combining detailed explorations of both mainstream and experimental poets with a clear historical and literary overview, Reading Postwar British and Irish Poetry offers readers at all levels an ideal guide to the rich body of poetic works published in Britain and Ireland over the last half-century.

• Features detailed discussions of individual poems that are widely available in anthologies and selected poems volumes
• Pays explicit attention to how to read the poems, focusing on language and form and the institutional conditions of literary possibility in...