Phineas Fletcher

Phineas Fletcher?s epic allegorical poem 'The Purple Island' (1633) combines anatomical and devotional perspectives on the self as the poet explores the relationship between body and soul. The titular island is figured as both body and as England, thus merging religious, corporeal, devotional, and geo-national narratives. The present critical edition offers the first fresh editorial approach to the poem in over a century and situates the poem in its historical and critical contexts. Although the poem has often been regarded as a bizarre and fragmented curiosity, Johnathan H. Pope compellingly argues in favour of a more unified reading and understanding of the text as a whole, offering a newly-annotated edition that illuminates the text for both the Fletcher specialist and newcomer alike.

This varied and far-ranging volume contains a substantial selection from the work of one of our most distinguished poets. From his first book, A Crackling of Thorns, chosen by W.H. Auden as the 1958 volume in the Yale Series of Younger Poets, to his most recent, Harp Lake (1988), Selected Poetry provides an overview of the brilliant career in poetry celebrated by John Hollander's appointment as a MacArthur Fellow. It includes work from eleven volumes, almost all out of print, and is published simultaneously with a new collection, Tesserae and Other Poems. Harold Bloom has said of Hollander's last book, "It confirms his authentic eminence, comparable in my judgment to that of Merrill, Ashbery, Ammons and only a few others in his own generation of American poets." Selected Poetry replaces an earlier volume, Spectral Emanations, New and Selected Poems, published in 1978 and now out of print.