Alvarez, A. "William Shakespeare: The Phoenix and the Turtle." In Interpretations: Essays on Twelve English Poems, edited by John Wain, pp. 1-16. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972.

Offers a metaphysical reading of The Phoenix and Turtle that highlights its paradoxical nature and stresses the importance of symbolic language in the poem.

Bates, Ronald. "Shakespeare's 'The Phoenix and Turtle.'" Shakespeare Quarterly VI (1955): 19-26.

Evaluates the "strange and unique tone" of The Phoenix and Turtle, particularly the intrusion of comic notes into its otherwise "profoundly serious atmosphere."

Campbell, K. T. S. "The Phoenix and the Turtle as a Signpost of Shakespeare's Development." The British Journal of Aesthetics 10, No. 2 (April 1970): 169-79.

Describes The Phoenix and Turtle as an "emblematic representation of [Shakespeare's] self-conscious understanding of poetry" and a "metaphoric crystallization" of his forthcoming tragic dramatic form.

Copland, Murray. "The Dead Phoenix." Essays in Criticism XV, No. 3 (July 1965): 279-87.

Discusses The Phoenix and Turtle as "a poem of mourning, a meditation on the hard fact of mortality."

Cunningham, J. V. "'Essence' and the Phoenix and Turtle." English Literary History 19, No. 4 (December 1952): 265-76.

Demonstrates "how the material of courtly love in Shakespeare's Phoenix and Turtle is treated in terms of scholastic theology."

Empson, William. "The Phoenix and Turtle." Essays in Criticism XVI, No. 2 (April 1996): 147-53.

Provides the historical background to Shakespeare's "exquisite but baffling poem."

Hume, Anthea. "Love's Martyr, 'The Phoenix and the Turtle', and the Aftermath of the Essex Rebellion." Review of English Studies n.s. XL, No. 157 (1989): 48-71.

Compares the political motivations of Robert Chester's Love's Martyr and Shakespeare's The Phoenix and Turtle, contending that both examine "the theme of mutual love" between a monarch—specifically Queen Elizabeth I—and her subjects.

Lever, J. W. "The Poems." Shakespeare Survey 15 (1962): 18-30.

Surveys the critical approaches to The Phoenix and Turtle from the first half of the twentieth century.

Ong, Walter J. "Metaphor and the Twinned Vision (The Phoenix and the Turtle)." Sewanee Review 63, No. 2 (Spring 1955): 193-201.

Uses The Phoenix and Turtle to illustrate a conception of metaphorical language as capable of accommodating disparate ideas or meanings within a single image.

Seltzer, Daniel. "'Their Tragic Scene': The Phoenix and Turtle and Shakespeare's Love Tragedies." Shakespeare Quarterly XII, No. 2 (Spring 1961): 91-101.

Focuses on formal and thematic affinities between The Phoenix and Turtle and Shakespeare's dramatic works.

Wilbur, Richard. "Shakespeare's Poems." In Responses: Prose Pieces: 1953-1976, pp. 78-91. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976.

Mentions The Phoenix and Turtle as "a celebration of ideal love" and briefly surveys Shakespeare's use of language and symbolism in the poem.