The Wit of Seventeenth-century Poetry

Front Cover
Claude J. Summers, Ted-Larry Pebworth
University of Missouri Press, 1995 - 222 pages

As the twelve original essays collected in this volume demonstrate, to study the wit of seventeenth-century poetry is necessarily to address concerns at the very heart of the period's shifting literary culture. It is a topic that raises persistent questions of thematics and authorial intent, even as it interrogates a wide spectrum of cultural practices. These essays by some of the most renowned scholars in seventeenth-century studies illuminate important authors and engage issues of politics and religion, of secular and sacred love, of literary theory and poetic technique, of gender relations and historical consciousness, of literary history and social change, as well as larger concerns of literary production and smaller ones of local effects. Collectively, they illustrate the vitality of the topic, both in its own right and as a means of understanding the complexity and range of seventeenth-century English poetry.

 

Contents

Helen Wilcox
3
The Case of Devotional Poetry
9
P G Stanwood and Lee M Johnson
22
Erna Kelly
42
Jim Ellis
62
Catherine Gimelli Martin
78
Evans
101
George Herberts Pastoral Wit
119
Roger B Rollin
135
Sharon Cadman Seelig
151
Lorraine Roberts
171
Quinsey
199
Notes on the Contributors
215
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