Invisible Listeners: Lyric Intimacy in Herbert, Whitman, and Ashbery

The renowned literary critic offers an enlightening exploration of three great poets that "goes to the heart of our experience of lyric" (Bonnie Costello, Boston University, author of Shifting Ground).

When a poet addresses a living person, we recognize the expression of intimacy. But what impels poets to leap across time and space to speak to invisible listeners? In Invisible Listeners, Helen Vendler looks at three great poets from different centuries who do just that: George Herbert with ...