The Poems of Andrew Marvell (Relié)

Andrew Marvell (1621-78) produced a comparatively small but quite exceptional body of verse. Marvell was hale known as a poet in his own time, and was best known as a patriotic politician and champion of religious toleration. His reputation as a great poet has grown consistently over the last century, as readers have acclaimed not only his technical excellence, but also the presence in his verse of a number of themes, such as poetry's relationship with politics, ecology, and the complexity of sexual identity. This new edition presents an authoritative text of Marvell's poetry together with the fullest account yet published of matters of dating, publication, historical context, sources and critical reception, contained in a headnote for each poem. The annotations record in unprecedented detail word definitions, literary, philosophical and theological analogues and allusions, and address local points of interpretation, making use of the many hundreds of publications devoted to Marvell's life and works. Marvell's canon is reappraised : some poems hitherto considered dubious are added, and others excluded. Nigel Smith's edition is the first complete, annotated edition of Andrew Marvell's verse for thirty years and as such is an indispensable guide to the study of Marvell's poetry.