Becoming a Reader argues that, whatever our individual differences of personality and background, there is a regular sequence of attitudes we go through as we mature, which affect how we experience fiction, from the five-year-old child absorbed in the world of fantasy play, through the seventeen year old critical seeker of the truth, to the middle-aged reader recognizing their own experiences in fictional characters. Becoming a Reader argues that this sequence of responses can be worked out a...

Since publication in 1979 Isabel Rivers' sourcebook has established itself as the essential guide to English Renaissance poetry. It:provides an account of the main classical and Christian ideas, outlining their meaning, their origins and their transmission to the Renaissance;illustrates the ways in which Renaissance poetry drew on classical and Christian ideas;contains extracts from key classical and Christian texts and relates these to the extracts of the English poems which draw on them;inc...