Each of the chapters is self-contained and places its topic in relation to past and current critical debates, but the book is organized so that the biographical, intellectual, and political focus of Part One informs the discussion of poetic craftsmanship in Part Two.

Keeping the Ancient Way provides a wealth of up-to-date scholarship and close readings across the spectrum of the poetry and prose of a major seventeenth-century writer. Its ten chapters open up topics that are central to the understanding and appreciation of a poet whose life was turned upside down by civil war and religious persecution.