| Synopsis: |
Donald Davie is a poet-critic: his admirable essays are free of jargon, full of the clarity and insight of a major practitioner of the poetic art. His writing is in every sense refreshing: a pleasure to read and an inspiration to re-read the writers he considers, who here include, Ralegh, Shakespeare, Milton, Edward Taylor, Isaac Watts, Dryden, Berkeley, Pope, Wesley, Smart, Cowper, Goldsmith, Dr Johnson, Wordsworth, Scott, Keats and Landor as well as Chaucer and Browning. What gives this book unity is style, a coherence of concerns and an insistence on revaluing certain writers - including Scott and Goldsmith and the great hymn writers - who have fallen out of fashion. |