Lyric Wonder: Rhetoric and Wit in Renaissance English Poetry

James Biester sees the shift in late Elizabethan England toward a witty, rough, and obscure lyric style—metaphysical wit and strong lines—as a response to the heightened cultural prestige of wonder. That same prestige was demonstrated in the search for strange artifacts and animals to display in the wonder-cabinets of the period.

By embracing the genres of satire and epigram, poets of the Elizabethan court risked their chances for political advancement, exposing themselves to the danger of b...