Blank verse, unrhymed iambic pentameter, has been central to English poetry since the Renaissance. It is the basic vehicle of Shakespeare's plays and the form in which Milton chose to write Paradise Lost. Milton associated it with freedom, and the Romantics, connecting it in turn with freethinking, used it to explore change and confront modernity, sometimes in unexpectedly radical ways. Henry Weinfield's detailed readings of the masterpieces of English blank verse focus on Milton, Wordswor...

The Poetry and Poetics of Michael Heller: A Nomad Memory is the first comprehensive treatment of a singularly important American poet of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Michael Heller (b. 1937) has amassed a body of poetry and criticism that places him in the vanguard of modern literature, and this essay collection provides the first extensive critical treatment of his varied career. This book 's multifaceted appraisal of his engagement with poetry as well as crucial ideas across...