Among the most accomplished lyrics of the English Renaissance, The Sidney Psalter influenced poets from Donne and Herbert to Milton and beyond. It turned the well-known biblical psalms into sophisticated verse, selecting or inventing a different stanza form for each one. This variety of forms matches the appeal of their content-making them suitable for every occasion, for public worship and private devotion-and their lyrical virtuosity appeals to any poetry lover. The first complete edition of the Sidney Psalter for over forty years, this new volume makes these beautiful poems available in an authoritative modernized text drawn from the definitive Oxford editions of the two poets. Hannibal Hamlin's excellent Introduction considers the poems' astonishing mastery of verse forms and describes the literary and social contexts from which they came. On-page glosses explain unfamiliar words or usages, and fuller explanatory notes summarize each psalm and provide further background information. The book also includes an up-to-date bibliography and chronology.
