JAMES P. BEDNARZ is Professor of English at Long Island University, USA, where he has received the Trustees' Award for Excellence in Scholarship and the David Newton Award for Excellence in Teaching. He is the author of Shakespeare and the Poets' War (2001). He has published widely in international journals and contributed chapters to a number of high profile collections on Shakespeare and his contemporaries.

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction The Mystery of 'The Phoenix and Turtle' Eliminating Essex: Richard II and the Diverse Poetical Essays Literary Politics: The Publication of Love's Martyr Incorporate Selves: Shakespeare's Mythmaking Shakespeare's Poetic Theology Metaphysical Wit from Shakespeare to Donne Epilogue: 'If what parts, can so remaine' Appendix: Diverse Poetical Essays Index

A comprehensive study of Shakespeare's forgotten masterpiece The Phoenix and Turtle . Bednarz confronts the question of why one of the greatest poems in the English language is customarily ignored or misconstrued by Shakespeare biographers, literary historians, and critics.