Wagner takes Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Rossetti and Hopkins in turn examining how each differs from the previous poets and their specific innovations to the sonnet. The sense of accumulation as the discussion progresses is powerful and convincing. She conveys the telling of the poet's consciousness of his predecessors extremely well. For me, however, there is a lack of an over-all thesis which leaves me with the impression of an omission of some kind. Surely the development and extension of literature is what every writer aspires to achieve.
Nobody writes in a vacuum and is influenced by the writing they read.
It is natural that Frost should be similarly influenced. The problem with this work is the lack of denouement, the pay-off, which would transform this example of genre history into something exceptional. In her discussion Wagner uses the term 'visionary' sonnet. Wagner defines a visionary sonnet as one which reflects upon the actual composition of the poem, the process of writing the sonnet, and the moment of that creation. Wagner addresses her subject in a scholarly fashion.