Description: As a study of lyric poetry, in English, from the early modern period to the present, this book explores one of the most ancient and significant art forms in Western culture as it emerges in its various modern incarnations. Combining a much-needed historicisation of the concept of lyric with an aesthetic and formal focus, this collaboration of period-specialists offers a new cross-historical approach. Through eleven chapters, spanning more than four centuries, the book provides readers with both a genealogical framework for the understanding of lyric poetry within any particular period, and a necessary context for more general discussion of the nature of genre.
Brief description: Marion Thain is Reader in English Literature and Culture at Sheffield University. She has published primarily on late-nineteenth-century poetry and poetics, and is author of 'Michael Field': Poetry, Aestheticism and the Fin de Siècle (Cambridge, 2007).
Review Quotes: '... a carefully crafted collection.' The Times Literary Supplement