An introduction to the poetry of the seventeenth century, from the accession of James I through the Restoration. Through close reading of major authors we will look at private and public styles; patronage and intimacy; writing for money; 'metaphysical' poetry; the fashioning of a literary career; the English civil war, interregnum, and Restoration; poetic voice; New World poetry; the new science; libertinism; and innovations in this period in genres of English poetry such as elegy, pastoral, lyric, satire, 'songs and sonnets', devotional poetry, and more.