Thomas A. Copeland
The Defense of Poesy
Sidney envisions the world as an ideally ordered structure that rewards good and punishes evil, but this order, vitiated by sin, has fallen …
Back to Methuselah
In this late work, Shaw examines many contemporary issues under the broad rubric of evolution and then illustrates his opinions in five brie…
Selected Poems
These poems, from Herbert’s book The Temple, show the evolution of a soul’s relationship with God. Sudden reversals of mood are common, for …
The Shadow Flies
The title of the original, British release of this novel was They Were Defeated, referring, among other matters, to the English Civil War, 1…
Milton's Minor Poems
“On Shakespear 1630” typifies much of Milton’s poetry. By some miracle never yet explained, at age 24 he managed to get a 16-line encomium i…
Monsieur Beaucaire
A madcap Frenchman posing as an ambassador's barber blackmails a dishonest duke to introduce him as a nobleman to a wealthy belle of Bath. S…
Venus and Adonis (Version 2)
Both Ovid and Spenser also treat this ancient myth, but Spenser alters the ending, converting the tale into an archetype of fulfilled love, …
Gargantua and Pantagruel, Book IV
This fourth in the five novels about the giants Pantagruel and his father Gargantua is the last novel indusputably attributed to Franç…
John Donne's Satires
Donne’s StyleIn John Donne’s day, a satire was such a poem as a satyr might compose. Satyrs were rough, savage creatures in Greek mythology…
Four Hymns
Spenser explains in the dedication of this volume that the hymns to love and to beauty were written early in his career and their "heav…
Rosalynde or, Euphues' Golden Legacie
This novel, which Shakespeare adapted in his pastoral comedy As You Like It, is the archetypal pastoral adventure. Two young persons of high…
Sonnets
It has been observed that within the narrow confines of a sonnet the mind can turn around but cannot take flight. Some of Millay’s sonnets, …
Joseph and His Friend: A Story of Pennsylvania
The protagonist in Joseph and His Friend: A Story of Pennsylvania, by Bayard Taylor, is an intelligent and educated young farmer who has led…
A High Wind in Jamaica
Childhood and piracy: an unlikely pairing, in a tragi-comic adventure. Neither Treasure Island nor Peter Pan prepares one for the kind of de…
The "Old" Arcadia
Sir Philip Sidney wrote two romances which he called Arcadia. The revised version he never finished because of his untimely death on the bat…
Sohrab and Rustum: An Episode
A young soldier born among Tartars but sired by the mighty Persian lord Rustum, serves in the Tartar army, seeking his great father. To this…
Of Education
A well educated population is the cornerstone of a strong society. On the personal level, education contributes to virtue and self-knowledge…
Brittains Ida or Venus and Anchises
While hunting, the boy Anchises stumbles upon Venus's forest retreat and is so kindly entertained by the goddess that he becomes the proud f…
Shakespeare's Ovid, Being Arthur Golding's Translation of the Metamorphoses
Ovid represents his work as a celebration of mutability in the form of a history of the world's notable transformations. It is a compendium …
The Anniversary Poems
Elizabeth Drury, daughter of Donne's patron, Sir Robert Drury, died in 1610. A year later Donne laments her hyperbolically as the soul of th…