Sinopsis

This highly respected edition now appears for the first time in the Everyman series. It is based on a Bodleian manuscript acquiered in 1949 and compiled, probably, under the direction of Marvell's nephew and intimate friend, William Popple, after the poet's death. The manuscript supplies the text of the Cromwellian poems cancelled from the Miscellaneous Poems of 1681 and includes two major political satires of the 1660s that employed strategies and techniques that were to be a model for the great mock-heroic poems of the Restoration, the second and third 'Advices to a Painter'. Although the authenticity of these two poems is still disputed among scholars, they are vital in tracing Marvell's transformation from a leading metaphisical poet of the mid-century into a vigorous champion of religious and political freedoms jeopardized by the leanings of Charles II's government toward Popery and arbitrary government. The manuscript also supplies a number of corrected readings and cancels a number of poems attributed wrongly to Marvell. There can be little doubt that it provides the most authentic text and was intended for an edition that never went to press. Professor Lord's introduction discusses the questions of textual authority and provides an extended examination of Marvell's lyric and satiric styles. The text follows the original capitalization and italics, with minor modifications to the spellings puctuation, and the poems are usefully annotated at the foot of the page.