Table of Contents

Preface; Part I. Antiquity: 1. Plato and the neoplatonists Anne Shepard; Part II. The Early Christian Period and the Middle Ages: 2. Introduction Anna Baldwin; 3. The Christian Platonism of St. Augustine Janet Coleman; 4. Boethius and King Alfred Janet Bately; 5. Chaucer's use of neoplatonic traditions Yasunari Takada; 6. Platonism in the middle english mystics Andrew Louth; Part III. The Renaissance and the Seventeenth Century: 7. Introduction Sarah Hutton; 8. The transformation of Platonic love in the Italian Renaissance Jill Kraye; 9. Uses of Plato by Erasmus and more Dominic Baker-Smith; 10. Italian neoplatonism and the poetry of Sidney, Spenser, Chapman and Donne John Doe; 11. Shakespeare on beauty, truth and transcendence Stephen Medcalfe; 12. Platonism in Spenser's mutability cantos Thomas Bulger; 13. Reason, recollection and the Cambridge Platonists Dominic Scott; 14. Platonic ascents and descents in Milton Anna Baldwin; 15. Platonism in some metaphysical poets Sarah Hutton; Part IV. The Eighteenth Century: 16. Introduction Pat Rogers; 17. Blake and Platonism Edward Larrissy; Part V. The Nineteenth Century: 18. Introduction Richard Jenkyns; 19. Recollection and recovery: Coleridge's Platonism Keith Cunliffe; 20. Wordsworth's Ode on the Intimations of Immortality Anthony Price; 21. Shelley, Plato and the political imagination Jennifer Wallace; 22. Matthew Arnold and the spirit of Plato Mark Rowe; 23. Flow, rest and number: Pater's Plato Anne Varty; Part V. The Twentieth Century: 24. Introduction Angela Elliott; 25. Yeats and Platonism Brian Arkins; 26. Virginia Woolf and Plato Brenda Lyons; 27. Plato and Eliot's earlier verse Dennis Brown; 28. The Cantos of Ezra Pound: 'to build light' David A. Moody; 29. Platonism in Auden Daphne Turner; 30. Platonism in Iris Murdoch Peter Conradi.

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The first comprehensive overview of the influence of Platonism on English literature.

Reviews

'… a fascinating introduction to the variety and richness of the tradition Plato inspired.' The Times Literary Supplement