Reading Masterpieces

Many modern readers are intimidated by the language and literary conventions of medieval and Renaissance verse—lyrical works written at a time before poetry was assumed to be about personal expression. This readers’ guide introduces to a 21st-century audience some of the greatest masterpieces of English poetry spanning five centuries. Focusing on poems by Chaucer, Wyatt, Shakespeare, Milton and others, the author discusses the development of poetic technique, explains the rhetorical culture of earlier centuries and describes the various lyric forms—including lover’s complaints, sonnets and elegies—that poets used to communicate with readers.