The seventeenth century background:

If you are interested in lit of 17th century but know little of intellectual world or theology outside of Puritanism, this is close to a must read. W. goes through major figures and movements, with many quotes, to show how poetry lost out as the mechanistic view of the universe destroyed the mythological structure and much of the symbolism upon which poetry had rested. The Janus head on the anchor cover is apt, for the period opens with the crushing of scholasticism and ends with the dawn of the Augustan Age. Read it.