San Antonio College Library

James Biester sees the shift in late Elizabethan England toward a witty, rough, and obscure lyric style - metaphysical wit and strong lines - as a response to the heightened cultural prestige of wonder. That same prestige was demonstrated in the search for strange artifacts and animals to display in the wondercabinets of the period. By embracing the genres of satire and epigram, poets of the Elizabethan court risked their chances for political advancement,...

This volume presents the major works of five poets--George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, Andrew Marvell, Henry Vaughan, and Thomas Traherne. While most of the selections are religious poetry, the important secular verse of Marvell and Crashaw is also included. Eighty poems by Herbert have been selected from The Temple, and two early poems from Issak Walton's Lives are also included.