Download or read book Poetic Occasion from Milton to Wordsworth written by J. Dolan and published by Springer. This book was released on 1999-10-28 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.