Cambridge University Press The Cambridge Companion to Andrew Marvell (Cambridge Companions to Literature)

Andrew Marvell is one of the greatest English lyric poets of the seventeenth century and one of its leading polemicists. This Companion brings a set of fresh questions and perspectives to bear on the varied career and diverse writings of a remarkable writer and elusive man. Drawing on important new editions of Marvell's poetry and of his prose, scholars of both history and literature examine Marvell's work in the contexts of Restoration politics and religion, and of the seventeenth-century publishing world in both manuscript and print. The essays, individually and collectively, address Marvell within his literary and cultural traditions and communities; his almost prescient sense of the economy and ecology of the country; his interest in visual arts and architecture; his opaque political and spiritual identities; his manners in controversy and polemic; the character of his erotic and transgressive imagination and his biography, still full of intriguing gaps. Review ".., it offers snapshots of contemporary approaches to Marvell's poetic and public career." --Recent Studies in the English Renaissance Book Description A set of specially commissioned essays forming a fresh understanding of the poet within his time and place. About the Author Derek Hirst is William Eliot Smith Professor of History at Washington University, St Louis.Steven N. Zwicker is Stanley Elkin Professor in the Humanities at Washington University, St Louis.