The Complete Sonnets and Poems

Despite the power of Shakespeare's poems, and their foundational place within his oeuvre, modern readers have seldom been encouraged to engage with his non-dramatic works as a whole. This new edition explains how this state of affairs has arisen, and why it needs to be changed. It contains the complete Sonnets and poems with a full commentary. An extensive and lively introduction explores Shakespeare's poetic development, and shows how the poems relate to each other and to his dramatic works. Each work is freshly interpreted, making full use of the latest research. The volume also explores what the poems may have meant to their earliest readers, and, for this reason, it includes poems attributed to Shakespeare in the seventeenth century, as well as those printed under his name in The Passionate Pilgrim in 1599.

List of Illustrations	p. ix
Introduction	p. 1
Shakespeare the Poet	p. 1
Venus and Adonis	p. 6
Publication and Date of Composition	p. 6
Dedication	p. 10
Literary Milieu	p. 15
Lucrece	p. 40
Publication and Date of Composition	p. 40
The Argument, Sources, and Politics	p. 45
Reading (in) Lucrece	p. 55
Rape and Consent	p. 66
The Passionate Pilgrim	p. 74
'Let the bird of loudest lay'	p. 82
Shakespeare's Sonnets	p. 91
Publication and Circulation	p. 91
Dedication	p. 98
Date and Sequence	p. 103
Sources	p. 111
Reading the Sonnets	p. 118
A Lover's Complaint	p. 138
Date and Attribution	p. 138
The Poem and its Context	p. 140
Poems Attributed to Shakespeare in the Seventeenth Century	p. 146
'Shall I die?'	p. 148
A Funeral Elegy	p. 152
Editorial Procedures	p. 159
Abbreviations and References	p. 160
Venus and Adonis	p. 171
Lucrece	p. 237
The Passionate Pilgrim	p. 339
'Let the Bird of Loudest Lay'	p. 371
Shakespeare's Sonnets	p. 379
A Lover's Complaint	p. 693
Appendix	p. 719
Poems Attributed to Shakespeare in the Seventeenth Century	p. 719
Index	p. 729
Index of First Lines	p. 748
Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved.

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The Complete Sonnets and Poems

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Table of Contents

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