A Critical History of English Poetry - (Bloomsbury Academic Collections: English Literary Criticism) by Herbert Grierson & J C Smith (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

This famous work was the result of the wartime collaboration of two Scottish scholars. Their tracing of the course of English poetry has been described by The Times Literary Supplement as a 'volume of masterly compression'. They deliberately spend most time on the greatest poets, believing that, significant as traditions and influences are, the great poet himself affects the spirit of his age and moulds the tradition he has inherited. At the same time, enough attention is paid to minor poets to make the book historically complete, and to fill in the most important links in the chain of poetic development. Thus Gower is here, as well as Chaucer; Patmore, as well as Browning. Both in scope and in detail A Critical History of English Poetry is a distinguished and valuable work.

About the Author

Sir Herbert Grierson was born in 1866. Educated at King's College, Aberdeen, and Christ Church, Oxford, he was Professor of English Literature at Aberdeen University from 1894 to 1915, and at Edinburgh University from 1915 to 1935. His most famous publications include Metaphysical Poets: Donne to Butler and Cross Currents in the Literature of the Seventeenth Century. He died in 1960.

James Cruickshank Smith was born in 1867, and educated at Edinburgh University and Trinity College, Oxford. He was Chief Inspector of Schools in Scotland from 1927 to 1932, received two honorary doctorates, and was acting Professor of English Literature at Edinburgh University in 1932-3. Among his works are several editions of Shakespeare's plays and of Spenser's poetry. He died in 1946.