Andrew Marvell: Selected Poems

"Bloomsbury Poetry Classics" are selections from the work of some of our greatest poets. The series is aimed at the general reader rather than the specialist and carries no critical or explanatory apparatus. This can be found elsewhere. In the series the poems introduce themselves, on an uncluttered page and in a format that is both attractive and convenient. The selections have been made by the distinguished poet, critic and biographer Ian Hamilton. Andrew Marvell was born in Yorkshire in 1621, and came to maturity during the Civil War. It is thought that his first sympathies were royalist, but that, with Cromwell's accession, his views changed. His famous "Horatian Ode" exhibits a deep equivocation which persisted throughout his subsequent political career. He served prominently as a civil servant under Cromwell and later as Member of Parliament for Hull, a post which he held throughout the Restoration until his death in 1678 - a death not perhaps accidental. Marvell's poems were not published until after his death and even then went largely neglected until this century. Modern critics have responded enthusiastically to Marvell as a man of mystery, and are still arguing about his religious and political beliefs. They are united, though, in admiration for his poetry's oblique, ironic poise.