SOURCE: A review of Historical Evidence and the Reading of Seventeenth-Century Poetry, in ANQ, University of Kentucky Press, April-July, 1992, pp. 143-46.

In the following review, Freer contrasts Historical Evidence and the Reading of Seventeenth-Century Poetry with earlier writings by Brooks, asserting that "one of the chief subjects of this book is actually the evolution of Brooks's thought."

A collection of readings of ten poems by eight seventeenth-century poets, this volume [Historical Evidence and the Reading of Seventeenth-Century Poetry] brings together a number of essays that have appeared in various other collections and journals. Essays on King's "The Exequy," Corbett's "The Faeryes Farewell," Shirley's lyric beginning "The glories of our blood and state," Townshend's "To the Countess of Salisbury," Fanshawe's "The Fall," Herbert of Cherbury's "Ode upon a Question Moved," Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" and "The Garden," Lovelace's "The Grasse-Hopper," and Marvell's "Horatian Ode" make up the body...