This primer in applied critical theory bridges the gap between early modern English poetry and various analytical approaches to literature. It is more focused than other introductory guides to criticism, such as Wilfred Guerin’s Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature (1966; 2nd., 1979) and Charles Bressler’s Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice. Evans (English and philosophy, Auburn Univ., Montgomery) offers paragraph-length summaries of 20 critical methodologies and demonstrates, in chapter-length discussions, how they elucidate some 30 Renaissance poems by writers from Wyatt to Milton (included are several poems by Emilia Lanier, Anne Vaughn Lock, and Lady Mary Wroth). Evans’s style is direct and accessible but never simplistic. Not every method is applied to every text (one misses a psychoanalytic reading of Donne’s ‘Flea’ and ‘Holy Sonnet 14’), but Evans succeeds in showing how early modern texts might respond to a variety of reading approaches. Specialists may find the book’s design somewhat schematic, but the intended audience (less experienced readers) will welcome Evans's concise yet careful distinctions among a variety of potentially challenging, theoretical strategies. Supplementary materials by Anne Kemp and Christina Garner offer useful additional examples of explication and a taxonomy of critical methods. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates; graduate students; general readers.