I'm sure that others will have more recent criticism to recommend, but it's always worth looking at Cecil Moore's Backgrounds of English Literature (Minnesota, 1953), for three groundbreaking essays on the noncanonical poetry: "Shaftesbury and the Ethical Poets in England," "The Return to Nature in English Poetry of the 18th century," and "Whig Panegyric Verse."

Interestingly, BP mentions CM as editor but not as critic. But the more I think about it, the more I agree with him that the novelty of this verse lay not in the "philosophizing" element, but in the sheer empirical variety of subject-matter that these poems incorporated.

DM
David Mazella | 12.07.06 - 3:01 pm | #