This thematic guide offers interpretations of 415 poems, representing the work of more than 110 poets spanning seven centuries of British poetry. It should be useful to librarians and teachers who need to identify and locate poems on a given theme, and to students and all lovers of poetry who wish to enrich their understanding of the thematic meanings of poems. The main section of the guide contains narrative essays on 29 alphabetically arranged themes that recur throughout the history of British poetry. Within each section the explications of individual poems are arranged chronologically to trace the evolution of a particular theme over time. There are essays and following each entry, the poems are listed with information about the anthologies where the works can be found.