The Background of English Literature

Professor Grierson is that very rare thing an exact scholar who is interested in human behavior of all ages and, even rarer, a professor of literature whose sense of poetry is ever present: a notable volume.

Besides the famous introduction to his selection of Metaphysical Poets, which is reprinted here, this volume also contains critical studies of Don Quixote, Byron, Blake, and Gray, together with an explanatory essay entitled Classical and Romantic.