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Print Price: $53.95

Format:
Paperback
208 pp.
8 halftones, 135 mm x 203 mm

ISBN-13:
9780199256112

Publication date:
October 2004

Imprint: OUP UK

Shakespeare's Sonnets

Paul Edmondson and Stanley Wells

Series : Oxford Shakespeare Topics

The sonnets are among the most accomplished and fascinating poems in the English language. They are central to an understanding of Shakespeare's work as a poet and poetic dramatist, and while their autobiographical relevance is uncertain, no account of Shakespeare's life can afford to ignore them. So many myths and superstitions have arisen around these poems, relating for example to their possible addressees, to their coherence as a sequence, to their dates of composition, to their relation to other poetry of the period and to Shakespeare's plays, that even the most naïve reader will find it difficult to read them with an innocent mind. Shakespeare's Sonnets dispels the myths and focuses on the poems. Considering different possible ways of reading the Sonnets, Wells and Edmondson place them in a variety of literary and dramatic contexts - in relation to other poetry of the period, to Shakespeare's plays, as poems for performance, and in relation to their reception and reputation. Selected sonnets are discussed in depth, but the book avoids the jargon of theoretical criticism. Shakespeare's Sonnets is an exciting contribution to the Oxford Shakespeare Topics, ideal for students and the general reader interested in these intriguing poems.

Readership : Scholars, teachers, and students of Shakespeare, including advanced A-level, undergraduate and post-graduate English.

Reviews

`This is an admirably clear book about obscurity. The authors ask many impossible questions, then satisfy our curiosity while leaving them unanswered. The Sonnets are already opaque as we approach them. The famous introductory dedication to Mr W.H. has inspired volumes of misplaced ingenuity, enough to shadow the poems themselves. Trying to find Mr W.S. inside those 2000 enigmatic lines needs sense, sensibility, time, curiosity, patience and scholarship. Edmondson and Wells have those qualities. Though the centre of the labyrinth is never reached, they are lively and trustworthy guides.'
Tom Deveson, Around the Globe
`elegant...This book is excellent on links between theatre and sonnets...The book is also a consideration, even a celebration, of what, precisely, makes Shakespeare's verse so compelling.'
TLS

1. Introduction
2. The Early Publication of the Sonnets
3. History and Emergence of the Sonnet as a Literary Form
4. The Sonnets in Relation to Shakespeare's Life
5. The Form of Shakespeare's Sonnets
6. The Artistry of the Sonnets
7. Content of the Sonnets
8. The Sonnets as Theatre
9. The Place of 'A Lover's Complaint'
10. Later Publication of the Sonnets
11. Critical Reputation of the Sonnets
12. Ways in which Writers have Engaged Creatively with the Sonnets
13. Survey of More Recent Current Sonnet Criticism Treated Thematically
14. Sonnets and Performance
15. Conclusion
16. Further Reading

There are no Instructor/Student Resources available at this time.

Stanley Wells is Chairman and Paul Edmondson is Head of Education, both of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

There are no related titles available at this time.

Special Features

The only book to provide a guide to the Sonnets for students and general readers
Selected sonnets are discussed in depth, but the book avoids the jargon of theoretical criticism
Professor Stanley Wells is a leading authority on Shakespeare and has written extensively for Oxford University Press