[John Wain] typifies the very best of what one might call "Englishness"—good sense, moderation, a feeling for language, erudition without pretension, and wit.

The essays [in Professing Poetry] cover a wide variety of topics related to poetry and poets, and what comes through in all of them is Wain's deep love for poetry, his delight in sharing with us what he finds valuable. This is true particularly in the essays that deal with the work of individual poets—Auden, Emily Dickinson, Philip Larkin, William Empson and Edward Thomas. He has a knack for going right to the heart of a poet's work, placing it in the context of intellectual and social history without being stuffy about it, without taking anything away from the poem as poem. His insights, if not radical, are fresh and lively….

Wain's is a basically conservative spirit, as indicated by his championship of...