The art of Shakespeare's sonnets
In detailed commentaries on Shakespeare's 154 sonnets, Vendler reveals previously unperceived imaginative and stylistic features of the poems, pointing out not only new levels of import in particular lines, but also the ways in which the four parts of each sonnet work together to enact emotion and create dynamic effect. The commentaries - presented alongside the complete text of each poem, as printed in the 1609 edition and in a modernized version - offer fresh perspectives on the individual poems, and, taken together, provide a full picture of Shakespeare's techniques as a working poet. With the help of Vendler's acute eye, we gain an appreciation of "Shakespeare's elated variety of invention, his ironic capacity, his astonishing refinement of technique, and, above all, the reach of his skeptical imaginative intent." Vendler's understanding of the sonnets informs her readings on an accompanying compact disk, which is bound with the book. This recorded presentation of a selection of the poems, in giving aural form to Shakespeare's words, heightens our awareness of voice in lyric and adds the dimension of sound to poems too often registered merely as written words
Print Book, English, 1997
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1997
Compact discs
xviii, 672 pages : illustrations ; 26 cm + 1 audio disc (digital ; 4 3/4 in.)
9780674637115, 9780674637122, 0674637119, 0674637127
36806589
* Conventions of Reference * Introduction * The Sonnets * Appendix 1: Key Words * Appendix 2: Defective Key Words * Words Consulted * Index of First Lines
English