"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)
Notes on Contributors viii
Acknowledgments xii
Introduction 1
PART I Sonnet Form and Sonnet Sequence 13
1 The Value of the Sonnets 15 Stephen Booth
2 Formal Pleasure in the Sonnets 27 Helen Vendler
3 The Incomplete Narrative of Shakespeare s Sonnets 45 James Schiffer
4 Revolution in Shake–speares Sonnets 57 Margreta de Grazia
PART II Shakespeare and His Predecessors 71
5 The Refusal to be Judged in Petrarch and Shakespeare 73 Richard Strier
6 Dressing old words new ? Re–evaluating the Delian Structure 90 Heather Dubrow
7 Confounded by Winter: Speeding Time in Shakespeare s Sonnets 104 Dympna Callaghan
PART III Editorial Theory and Biographical Inquiry: Editing the Sonnets 119
8 Shake–speares Sonnets, Shakespeare s Sonnets, and Shakespearean Biography 121 Richard Dutton
9 Mr. Who He? 137 Stephen Orgel
10 Editing the Sonnets 145 Colin Burrow
11 William Empson and the Sonnets 163 Lars Engle
PART IV The Sonnets in Manuscript and Print 183
12 Shakespeare s Sonnets and the Manuscript Circulation of Texts in Early Modern England 185 Arthur F. Marotti
13 The Sonnets and Book History 204 Marcy L. North
PART V Models of Desire in the Sonnets 223
14 Shakespeare s Love Objects 225 Douglas Trevor
15 Tender Distance: Latinity and Desire in Shakespeare s Sonnets 242 Bradin Cormack
16 Fickle Glass 261 Rayna Kalas
17 Th expense of spirit in a waste of shame : Mapping the Emotional Regime of Shakespeare s Sonnets 277 Jyotsna G. Singh
PART VI Ideas of Darkness in the Sonnets 291
18 Rethinking Shakespeare s Dark Lady 293 Ilona Bell
19 Flesh Colors and Shakespeare s Sonnets 314 Elizabeth D. Harvey
PART VII Memory and Repetition in the Sonnets 329
20 Voicing the Young Man: Memory, Forgetting, and Subjectivity in the Procreation Sonnets 331 Garrett A. Sullivan, Jr.
21 Full character d : Competing Forms of Memory in Shakespeare s Sonnets 343 Amanda Watson
PART VIII The Sonnets in/and the Plays 361
22 Halting Sonnets: Poetry and Theater in Much Ado About Nothing 363 Patrick Cheney
23 Personal Identity and Vicarious Experience in Shakespeare s Sonnets 383 William Flesch
PART IX The Sonnets and A Lover s Complaint 403
24 Making the quadrangle round : Alchemy s Protean Forms in Shakespeare s sonnets and A Lover s Complaint 405 Margaret Healy
25 The Enigma of A Lover s Complaint 426 Catherine Bates
Appendix: The 1609 Text of Shakespeare s Sonnets and A Lover s Complaint 441
Index 502
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).
How should we read Shakespeare s sonnets? What knowledge and experience do readers need to appreciate the resonance of these vibrant poems? And in what context is their accomplishment most apparent? This authoritative
Companion to Shakespeare s sonnets represents the myriad ways of answering these questions and of thinking about the remarkable achievement of the sonnets.
The Companion demonstrates how the sonnets provide a mirror in which cultures can read their own critical biases. It also shows how the sonnets tease readers with the prospect of learning something about the inner life of this most enigmatic of writers. 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.