Poetry of Opposition and Revolution: Dryden to Wordsworth.

This highly intelligent, scholarly, and lucid sequel to Poetry and the Realm of Politics: Shakespeare to Dryden, offers both important fresh readings of Dryden, Pope, Johnson, and Wordsworth and a more general assessment of a particular type of poetry. Erskine-Hill does not focus on what he terms pure state poems, or indeed on particular political complaints or desires, but rather considers complete works in which political moments, aspects, and structures are integral to their aesthetic and moral achievement. These political aspects add complexity and depth to the longstanding tradition of the moral scrutiny of rulers and governments, and such scrutiny is generally mediated …