A Companion to Shakespeare's Sonnets

Schoenfeldt, Michael (Editor)

Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture

1. Edition February 2010
534 Pages, Softcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd

ISBN: 978-1-4443-3206-3

John Wiley & Sons

Short Description

This Companion represents the myriad ways of thinking about the remarkable achievement of Shakespeare's sonnets. It demonstrates how the sonnets provide a mirror in which cultures can read their own critical biases. Its original contributions consider the form, sequence, and content of the sonnets, the literary context in which they were produced, and the ways they have been edited and printed. Informed by the latest theoretical, cultural, and archival work, the text also takes account of the work of earlier generations of scholars.

Further versions

This Companion represents the myriad ways of thinking about the remarkable achievement of Shakespeare's sonnets.
* An authoritative reference guide and extended introduction to Shakespeare's sonnets.
* Contains more than 20 newly-commissioned essays by both established and younger scholars.
* Considers the form, sequence, content, literary context, editing and printing of the sonnets.
* Shows how the sonnets provide a mirror in which cultures can read their own critical biases.
* Informed by the latest theoretical, cultural and archival work.

Notes on Contributors.

Acknowledgments.

Introduction.

PART I Sonnet Form and Sonnet Sequence.

1 The Value of the Sonnets (Stephen Booth).

2 Formal Pleasure in the Sonnets (Helen Vendler).

3 The Incomplete Narrative of Shakespeare's Sonnets (James Schiffer).

4 Revolution in Shake-speares Sonnets (Margreta de Grazia).

PART II Shakespeare and His Predecessors.

5 The Refusal to be Judged in Petrarch and Shakespeare (Richard Strier).

6 "Dressing old words new"? Re-evaluating the "Delian Structure" (Heather Dubrow).

7 Confounded by Winter: Speeding Time in Shakespeare's Sonnets (Dympna Callaghan).

PART III Editorial Theory and Biographical Inquiry: Editing the Sonnets.

8 Shake-speares Sonnets, Shakespeare.s Sonnets, and Shakespearean Biography (Richard Dutton).

9 Mr. Who He? (Stephen Orgel).

10 Editing the Sonnets (Colin Burrow).

11 William Empson and the Sonnets (Lars Engle).

PART IV The Sonnets in Manuscript and Print.

12 Shakespeare's Sonnets and the Manuscript Circulation of Texts in Early Modern England (Arthur F. Marotti).

13 The Sonnets and Book History (Marcy L. North).

PART V Models of Desire in the Sonnets.

14 Shakespeare's Love Objects (Douglas Trevor).

15 Tender Distance: Latinity and Desire in Shakespeare's Sonnets (Bradin Cormack).

16 Fickle Glass (Rayna Kalas).

17 "Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame": Mapping the "Emotional Regime" of Shakespeare's Sonnets (Jyotsna G. Singh).

PART VI Ideas of Darkness in the Sonnets.

18 Rethinking Shakespeare's Dark Lady (Ilona Bell).

19 Flesh Colors and Shakespeare's Sonnets (Elizabeth D. Harvey).

PART VII Memory and Repetition in the Sonnets.

20 Voicing the Young Man: Memory, Forgetting, and Subjectivity in the Procreation Sonnets (Garrett A. Sullivan, Jr.).

21 "Full character'd": Competing Forms of Memory in Shakespeare's Sonnets (Amanda Watson).

PART VIII The Sonnets in/and the Plays.

22 Halting Sonnets: Poetry and Theater in Much Ado About Nothing (Patrick Cheney).

23 Personal Identity and Vicarious Experience in Shakespeare's Sonnets (William Flesch).

PART IX The Sonnets and A Lover's Complaint.

24 "Making the quadrangle round": Alchemy's Protean Forms in Shakespeare's sonnets and A Lover's Complaint (Margaret Healy).

25 The Enigma of A Lover's Complaint (Catherine Bates).

Appendix: The 1609 Text of Shakespeare's Sonnets and A Lover's Complaint.

Index.

"Of making many reference books about Shakespeare there is no end, and Blackwell, a leader in the field of reference books on literature and other topics, has produced a large and expensive Companion to Shakespeare's Sonnets" (Chronique)

"This title provides a solid introduction to key concepts and ways of studying the work of an author who whose reputation is so great it is often difficult for readers new to the works to know where to begin.... The quality of all the essays is very high." (Reference Reviews, Issue 4 2008)

"Michael Schoenfeldt's compilation of twenty-five critical essays takes into account the most important issues concerning Shakespeare's sonnets: historical, interpretive, biographical, and editorial ... Several familiar themes in Sonnet criticism get fresh readings here ... it is obviously impossible to do justice here to all of the essays ... it is a valuable [guide] to the current state of criticism and scholarship." (Renaissance Quarterly)

"This is generally an excellently structured collection of essays." (Notes and Queries)

Michael Schoenfeldt is Professor of English Literature at the University of Michigan and Director of the Program in Medieval and Early Modern Studies. He is the author of Bodies and Selves in Early Modern England: Physiology and Inwardness in Spenser, Shakespeare, Herbert, and Milton (1999), Prayer and Power: George Herbert and Renaissance Courtship (1991), and co-editor of Imagining Death in Spenser and Milton (2003).

M. Schoenfeldt, University of Michigan, USA