Caroline Spurgeon's pioneer study of the imagery of Shakespeare's plays shows how much light can be thrown on Shakespeare's own mind and thought and on the themes and characters of the plays by a detailed examination of his imagery. At the same time she contrasts Shakespeare with other dramatists of his time, including Marlowe, Bacon, Ben Jonson and Dekker.

Beginning with a precise definition of the term mysticism, Spurgeon explores how mystical thought influenced many of England's finest writers.

This early work by Caroline Spurgeon was originally published in 1917 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'Poetry in the Light of War' is a work of literary criticism on poetry written during wartime. Caroline Spurgeon was born on 24 October 1869, in India. She was educated at Cheltenham Ladies College, England and at King's College, London and also University College London. Spurgeon went on to become an esteemed literary critic, and was actually the first female professor of English literature. From 1900 onwards she lectured on the subject and was only...

2014 Reprint of 1958 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Caroline Spurgeon is known as the first female university professor in London, the second in England. In 1935, Spurgeon wrote this pioneer study on the use of images in William Shakespeare's opus. In it she analyses the different types of images and motifs that he uses in his plays. She also shows that there is a "cluster," or there are several "clusters," of images in each of the major plays, for instance, illness and injury images in "Hamlet," and light and darkness images...