The definitive scholarly edition of Herbert's complete English poems, accompanied by extensive explanatory and textual apparatus, a glossary of key words and an index of biblical quotations. The text is meticulously annotated with historical, literary and biblical information, as well as modern critical contexts.

First Published in 1995. The Critical Heritage gathers together a large body of critical sources on major figures in literature. Each volume presents contemporary responses to a writer's work, enabling students and researchers to read for themselves, for example, comments on early performances of Shakespeare's plays, or reactions to the first publication of Jane Austen's novels. The carefully selected sources range from landmark essays in the history of criticism to journalism and contemporary opinion, and little published documentary material such as letters and diaries. Significant pieces of criticism from later periods are also included, in order to demonstrate the fluctuations in an author's reputation. Each volume contains an introduction to the writer's published works, a selected bibliography, and an index of works, authors and subjects. The Collected Critical Heritage set will be available as a set of 68 volumes and the series will also be available in mini sets selected by period (in slipcase boxes) and as individual volumes.

Itineraries, perambulations, and surveys : the intersections of chorography and cartography in the sixteenth century / John M. Adrian -- To serve my purpose : interpretive agency in George Wither's A collection of emblemes / Rob Browning -- The three noble kinsmen : Chaucer, Shakespeare, Fletcher / Kathryn L. Lynch -- Ovid and the question of politics in early modern England / Heather James -- Parodies lost : Aretino reads Raimondi /Helen M. Whall -- Accepting the flesh : George Herbert and the sacrament of Holy Communion / Jeannie Sargent Judge -- Twixt treason and convenience : some images of Thomas Wentworth, first Earl of Strafford / Julia B. Griffin -- Backbiters, flatterers, and monarchs : domestic politics in The tragedy of Mariam / Heather E. Ostman -- Gender and the market in Henry VI, I / Jennifer A. Rich -- Hrethel's heirloom : kinship, succession, and weaponry in Beowulf / Erin Mullally -- Shylock : Shakespeare's bad Jew / Jay L. Halio -- Coping with providentialism : trauma, identity, and the failure of the English Reformation / Scott Lucas.

As poet and as country parson, George Herbert engaged the pastoral in all of its varied senses. In October of 2007, many of the world's leading Herbert scholars met at Sarum College in Salisbury, England to locate Herbert's pastoral life and writings more particularly in early Stuart Wiltshire. They explored the relations between the pastoral locale of Herbert's last years (1630-1633) in nearby Bemerton and the themes, images, and tenor of his writing. How did the specific country place, time, and people shape the life and work of this especially lyrical country priest? The fourteen essays in this collection address Herbert's pastoral poetry and practice, cast new light on his actual relations with specific local personalities and places, make fresh connections to the inward biblical and liturgical spaces of his work, consider his outward links to garden and pasture, and discover fictional and theological reverberations beyond Herbert's local, pastoral world. Christopher Hodgkins is Professor of English at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro.

George Herbert combined the intellectual and the spiritual, the humble and the divine, to create some of the most moving devotional poetry in the English language. His deceptively simple verse uses the ingenious arguments typical of seventeenth-century 'metaphysical' poets, and unusual imagery drawn from musical structures, the natural world and domestic activity to explore a mosaic of Biblical themes. From the wit and wordplay of 'The Pulley' and the formal experimentation of 'Easter Wings' and 'Paradise', to the intense, highly personal relationship between man and God portrayed in 'The Collar' and 'Redemption', the works collected here show the transcendental power of divine love.