John Dolan takes a new approach to the evolution of the modern English lyric, emphasising the way in which several generations of poets, reacting to post-Reformation readers' dislike for invented poetic narratives, competed for the right to commemorate important public occasions and slowly expanded the range of acceptable occasion. This book demonstrates that many fundamental features of a typical modern lyric actually evolved as responses to the limitations of occasional poetry.

JOHN DOLAN is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand (1993 to date). From 1985 to 1992 he was lecturer in the Rhetoric Department of the University of California at Berkeley. He has published scholarly work on eighteenth-century poetry and prose, and on twentieth-century poetry, especially the work of Wallace Stevens, as well as two books of poetry.

Occasional Poetics in the Early Modern Lyric 'Pardon, Blest Soul, the Slow Pac'd Elegies': Ambition and Occasion in Justa Edovardo King Carrion Crows: Occasion in the Beginning and End of Dryden's Life Nadir: The Generation of Namur and the Famine of Occasions 'To Darkness and to Me': Mental Event as Poetic Occasion Gray to Cowper: Cat to Cast-away via ' Night Thoughts' Conclusion: The Development of the New-Modelled Lyric by Wordsworth Appendix 199 Bibliography Index