The Utopia and radical humanism -- The reformation and prophetic poetry-- The Shepheardes calender: prophecy and the court -- Sidney and political pastoral -- The Faerie queene and Elizabethan politics -- Voluntary servitude: Fulke Greville and the arts of power -- Jonson and the Jacobean peace, 1603-1616 -- The Spenserians and King James, 1603-1616 -- Crisis and reaction, 1617-1628 -- The politics of Milton's early poetry