Cowper's poetry. A critical study and reassessment.

This volume offers a fresh analysis and evaluation of the work of an important poet whose achievement has gone largely unrecognized in contemporary criticism. It covers, in depth, the whole range of Cowper's poetic writing, except as translator:his original and influentialmasterpiece, The Task, naturally takes pride of place, but there is at the same time substantial treatment of his moral satires and varied corpus of shorter poems, including the hymns, comic and 'occasional' verse, and above all the nakedly subjective lyrics culminating in 'The Castaway'.Cowper's poetry is reinterpreted not only from within, as an independent creative triumph and the expression of a complex inner life (which is further explored by reference to the letters and autobiographical Memoir), but also in relation to significant aspects of literary history and wider historical process. Cowper combines traditionalism with urgent innovation, continuing Puritan and Augustan modes yet firmly predicting the Romantic and Modern eras in such central features as his self-consciousness and development of the art of confession, his alienation from the public world, and his pursuit of an individual well-being through interaction with nature.Cowper's Poetry — which is the first book in recent times to be devoted solely and intensively to the themes, qualities, and relevance of Cowper's work — also contains a chronology of his life and a critical account of his reputation from his own day to the present.