Nicholas McDowell, Department of English, University of Exeter

"an excitingly speculative book about the links between poetry and politics in the seventeenth century" - Neil Forsyth, Times Literary Supplement

"tells us much about the intellectual and social world in which Marvell moved... [McDowell's] imaginative reconstruction of the literary life of revolutionary England adds a profoundly important dimension to our understanding of the cultural politics of the 1640s. To read this book is to see that decade from within, to live with its poets, and to hear them sing." - Matthew Adams, The Review of English Studies

"Nicholas McDowell's carefully researched book...adds a great deal to our emerging sense of the complexity of political, social and cultural identity during the 1640s [and] reveals a matrix of allusion, sociability, allegiance and engagement within which our understanding of the multiplicities of Marvell's poetry can be reformulated." - Jerome de Groot, Times Higher Education Supplement

"McDowell's work, through exemplary research and solid conjecture... revitalizes the contextual resources of Marvell scholarship." - Modern Language Review, 105. 2

"McDowell's methodology is certainly unique [and] succeeds comprehensively in enriching and complicating the age-old debate about Marvell's political and literary loyalties. The book is a significant contribution to the field which all subsequent investigations of Marvell's historical situation will have to contend with." - Noam Reisner, Year's Work in English Studies 89, 1