A Companion to Shakespeare's Sonnets

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 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 Copyrighted Material

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

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

"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). 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.