In this book the author offers an extended analysis of the interrelationship of Wordsworth and Milton, and links this to a new theory of the way poems relate to each other in the process of reading. Part 1 examines a range of approaches to influence and intertextuality, focusing on the controversial work of Harold Bloom, and uses Freud’s evolving theory of primary and secondary processes to develop an alternative model of literary reading. In part 2 Jarvis puts the theory on trial in a series of detailed readings between The Prelude and Paradise Lost , uncovering complex relationships of identity and difference that elude the control of poet and reader. The book dovetails close reading with poststructuralist theory, and foregrounds both the problem and pleasures of poetic.