Shakespeare's Sonnets Criticism
Shakespeare's Sonnets continue to captivate scholars and readers with their rich exploration of complex themes and innovative language. Published in 1609, the collection consists of 154 poems that delve into the intricacies of love, time, and human relationships, often defying straightforward interpretation. Scholars have long debated the autobiographical elements of the sonnets, with early criticism focusing on potential real-life counterparts to the characters of the fair young man, the dark lady, and the rival poet. However, modern criticism has shifted towards thematic, structural, and linguistic analysis, emphasizing the enigmatic and multifaceted nature of the poems, as noted by Gerald Hammond and Gregory W. Bredbeck.
One critical area of focus has been the sonnets' treatment of gender and sexuality. Shakespeare subverts traditional Petrarchan conventions by addressing a young man with a detached admiration, which introduces potential homoerotic undertones. Rosalie Colie highlights this subversion, while Bruce R. Smith and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick explore the intersection of homoerotic and misogynistic themes, where women are portrayed as threats to male bonds.
The linguistic and metaphorical richness of the sonnets has also been a subject of extensive critique. Scholars like Murray Krieger, Anne Ferry, and Sandra L. Bermann have explored how Shakespeare's use of metaphor and language constructs intricate verbal patterns that engage with the themes of time, immortality, and human experience. The sonnets reflect on love and desire with an emphasis on their tangible, often flawed nature, departing from idealistic portrayals.
The exploration of self-perception and introspection in the sonnets is another critical thread. As Jane Hedley and Elizabeth Harris Sagaser discuss, the poet's narcissism and introspective nature reflect a longing to see himself in the object of his affection, leading to a meditative joy even amidst life's transience. Philip Martin notes the poet’s ironic self-awareness and acceptance of imperfection, while John Klause and Hallett Smith highlight the complex interplay of sincerity and pretense in the poet's voice.
Further enriching the critical landscape is the examination of the sonnets' structural and thematic innovations. Rosalie L. Colie and Russell Fraser discuss Shakespeare's deviations from traditional sonnet forms, enhancing the poetry’s impact. Monetary imagery, as explored by Neal L. Goldstien, and performative language, analyzed by David Schalkwyk, reflect broader societal themes.
Ultimately, the Sonnets continue to be a dynamic field of study, with scholars like Alvin Kernan and Michael Cameron Andrews debating the connection between the sonnets and Shakespeare's life. The sonnets' rhetorical structures and thematic content, as highlighted by Joel Fineman and Jonathan Hart, provide a fertile ground for exploring the limitations and power of language and poetry. Through these varied lenses, the sonnets remain a testament to Shakespeare’s genius and the complex interplay of human emotions and societal themes.
Contents
- The Inversion of Cultural Traditions in Shakespeare's Sonnets
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What Are Shakespeare's Sonnets Called
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The critic explores the naming conventions and title "SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS" of Shakespeare's sonnets, arguing that the genitive title not only asserts authorship but may also imply a personal connection, suggesting that the poems concern Shakespeare himself, thus challenging traditional views that resist biographical interpretations.
- Shakespeare's Greening: The Privacy, Passion and Difficulty of the Sonnets
- Between Michelangelo and Petrarch: Shakespeare's Sonnets of Art
- Truth and Decay in Shakespeare's Sonnets
- The Magic of Shakespeare's Sonnets
- Introduction to The Sonnets
- Thou Maist Have Thy Will: The Sonnets of Shakespeare and His Stepsisters
- Shakespeare's Queer Sonnets and the Forgeries of William Henry Ireland
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Patterns of Consolation in Shakespeare's Sonnets 1-126
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Introduction
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Shakespeare's Sonnets, published in 1609, present a perplexing collection that has puzzled scholars with their seemingly unordered structure. Emily E. Stockard suggests that many of the sonnets align with Renaissance consolatory literature and exhibit patterns typical of Renaissance skeptical thought. Unlike traditional isolated readings, Stockard examines the sonnets within their sequence, revealing interconnected patterns and rhetorical strategies that provide consolation for life's enduring challenges, as noted in Stockard's analysis of the sonnets' organic unity compared to other contemporary works (Astrophil and Stella and Amoretti).
Shakespeare's sequence is marked by thematic coherence, particularly in its exploration of mutability concerning beauty, life, and love. These themes are interwoven with rhetorical strategies aimed at providing consolation. Stockard compares these strategies to the skeptical notions found in Renaissance drama, as discussed by Joel Altman, and the self-deceptive consolations portrayed in Shakespeare's Richard II. This comparison highlights the inadequacy of imaginative invention when faced with reality's harsh truths.
Stockard connects Shakespeare's use of consolation to Montaigne's skeptical thought, where the mind's capacity to rationalize and deceive parallels the strategies seen in the sonnets. Despite the temporary peace these strategies provide, they ultimately fail to reconcile the imagination with intractable reality. This aligns with Montaigne's view that momentary comfort, rather than truth, is often the aim of contemplative thought.
- Conventional Consolation (Sonnets 1-18)
- Neoplatonic Consolation (Sonnets 22-42)
- Absence and the Consolation of Alternation (Sonnets 43-56)
- Death and the Algebra of Consolation (Sonnets 62-74)
- The Consolation of Isolation (Sonnets 87-93)
- Infidelity: the Consolation of Mutability (Sonnets 113-125)
- Conclusion
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Introduction
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What May Words Do? The Performative of Praise in Shakespeare's Sonnets
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Introduction
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Shakespeare's Sonnets offer a rich field for exploring the use of language as a form of social action, rather than a mere descriptive or epistemological tool. David Schalkwyk argues that the sonnets should be understood through the lens of the "performative," a concept introduced by philosopher J. L. Austin. This perspective sees language as capable of enacting change or negotiation, particularly within the power dynamics between the "I" and "you" of the poems. Unlike a theatrical performance, which is concerned with the outward presentation, the performative in Shakespeare's sonnets functions within the social and political contexts of the Renaissance era, where language acts as a tool for negotiating relationships and authority, especially between the actor-poet and his aristocratic patron.
Schalkwyk identifies the sonnets as engaging in a performative struggle to mediate power relations, using language to embody a politics of self-authorization. For example, many sonnets directed towards the young man illustrate the poet's attempts to navigate the social gap between himself and his patron. Through the performative, Shakespeare's language not only articulates but transforms interactions, as observed in a dynamic interplay of power and powerlessness reminiscent of the Petrarchan tradition. This concept is further explored through three dimensions: the quasi-performative, illocutionary tautology, and the transformative powers of illocutionary language that bypass the demand for truth.
To better understand these mechanisms, Schalkwyk draws parallels between the sonnets and scenes from Antony and Cleopatra, where the performative is more overtly staged. This comparison reveals how Shakespeare artistically navigates between the performative and constative forms, using the latter as a guise for the former's transformative strength. Through this lens, Shakespeare's sonnets emerge as a sophisticated exploration of language's ability to shape human experience and social hierarchy.
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- II
- III
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Introduction
(summary)
- The Generic Complexities of A Lover's Complaint and Its Relationship to the Sonnets in Shakespeare's 1609 Volume
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Sonnets (Vol. 51)
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Overview
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Introduction to The Sonnets
(summary)
In the following essay, Hecht examines the types of love which are expressed in Shakespeare's sonnets. He also compares the poetical imagery in the sonnets with that found in Shakespeare's plays. Throughout his essay, Hecht traces scholarly assessment of the sonnets and how this assessment has changed over the centuries.
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Introduction to The Sonnets
(summary)
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Love And Romance
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The Friend and the Poet
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In the following excerpt, Wilson examines the sonnets which describe the love that the Poet, or Shakespeare, feels for his young male Friend. After asserting that the relationship between the two men was not homosexual, Wilson speculates about the Friend's social rank and his personality, and suggests that when a poet as great as Shakespeare settles his affections on one so apparently commonplace and uncomprehending as was his Friend, the consequences can be tragic.
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Recognition of Beauty
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In the following excerpt, Witt evaluates the sonnets which focus on the poet's 'mistress,' or 'the Dark Lady,' as opposed to the poems which center around the poet's male friend. Witt argues that while the earlier poems to 'the Friend' demonstrate the ideals of 'reasonable love,' those to the Dark Lady represent the destructiveness of a lustful, 'sensual,' and therefore false love. This negative love, Witt asserts, eventually teaches the poet to appreciate all the more the 'beauty' of the true love he has for his friend.
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Awareness Lost
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In the following excerpt, Weiser briefly contrasts the idealized love of the sonnets in what he calls the 'Fair Youth section' with the 'destructive' and 'distressing' sex of the 'Dark Lady' section. Weiser then looks more closely at the relationship between the poet and the Dark Lady, and argues that initially at least, the Dark Lady sonnets reveal more about the poet's own selfish needs than about the lady herself.
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The Friend and the Poet
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Self-Love
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Self-Love and Love Itself
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In the following excerpt, Martin discusses the manner in which the sonnets deal with positive self-love—a trait that he describes as "necessary, if the self is to survive and not disintegrate." Martin asserts that the poet of the sonnets is neither as "passive" nor as "slavish" as some critics have described him, but that instead, the poet reveals a healthy knowledge and irony about himself and the object of his affection.
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Since First Your Eye I Eyed: Shakspeare's Sonnets and the Poetics of Narcissism
(summary)
In the following excerpt, Hedley contends that self-love or narcissism is pervasive in Shakespeare's sonnets. After observing that the sonnet genre in general can be perceived as one where the poet is 'talking to himself,' Hedley also remarks that Shakespeare's sonnets in particular convey narcissism through their use of puns and through the poet's clear desire to become one with his beloved.
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Self-Love and Love Itself
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Voice
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The Voices and the Audience in Shakespeare's Sonnets
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In the following essay, Smith draws on the writings of T. S. Eliot to show how the voice heard in the sonnets is directed both toward itself—in the form of a soliloquy or meditation—and toward an audience—the Friend, for example, but also posterity.
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Shakespeare's Sonnets: Age in Love and the Goring of Thoughts
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In the following essay, Klause closely examines the apparent inconsistencies in the poetic voice of the sonnets. While acknowledging that the aging 'Poet' of the sonnets sounds 'humble' and 'submissive,' Klause asserts that this tone is intentionally used by the poet as a persuasive device and that it is not in conflict with the sonnets' powerful imagery.
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The Voices and the Audience in Shakespeare's Sonnets
(summary)
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Overview
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Sonnets (Vol. 40)
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Overviews
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Superposed Poetics: The Sonnets
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In the following essay, Lanham argues that Shakespeare created a unique kind of poetics in his sonnets by superimposing a rhetorical or 'play' discourse upon a serious one. The critic points out that this mode of expression allowed Shakespeare to reanimate Petrarchan clichés, to praise the youth extravagantly while simultaneously destroying his character, and to continually re-present the poetics in a series of inconsistent, contradictory guises.
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'This Poet Lies': Text and Subtext
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In this essay, Hammond explores the sources of readers ' uncertainties about the predominant tone of the sequence and the mood of individual sonnets. Focusing on Sonnets 1-19, he illustrates the discrepancies between text and subtext, the sometimes bewildering array of possible meanings in a single line or quatrain, and the sonnets' immunity to comprehensive generalizations.
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Incertainties now crown themselves assur'd: The Politics of Plotting Shakespeare's Sonnets
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In the following essay, Dubrow challenges assumptions that Shakespeare's sonnet sequence has a two-part structure and a linear plot, and contends that the traditional association of the Friend with the laudatory or positive sonnets and the association of the Dark Lady with the largely negative ones has fostered the notion that in these lyrics, evil has a feminine gender.
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Superposed Poetics: The Sonnets
(summary)
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Gender Identity
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Mel and Sal: Some Problems in Sonnet-Theory
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In the excerpt below, Colie regards Shakespeare's sequence as an exercise in reappraising the conventions and limitations of the traditional sonnet, calling attention to Shakespeare's innovative juxtaposition of mel and sal—sweetness and sharpness—and to his distinctly unconventional decision to address many of his sonnets to a young man rather than a woman.
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Swan in Love: The Example of Shakespeare's Sonnets
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In the following essay, Sedgwick distinguishes between homosocial bonding and homosexual desire in the sonnets. Asserting that the poems depict male-male love in the context of social institutions that confirm men's power and hegemony, she maintains that the Dark Lady represents a disruptive force that threatens to emasculate the speaker and destroy the homosocial bonds between the poet and the youth.
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The Secret Sharer
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In this excerpt, Smith describes some features that distinguish Shakespeare's lyrics from other sixteenth-century English sonnet sequences, including his subjectivity, his focus on love after sexual consummation, and his use of erotic images in poems addressed to another man.
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Traditional and the Individual Sodomite
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In the excerpt below, Bredbeck proposes that Shakespeare's sonnets represent a critique of language as a means of restricting expressions of desire to a single gender or sexuality. Focusing on Sonnets 1-21, he explains that although each poem demands a gendered interpretation, each one simultaneously frustrates our attempts to construct such a reading.
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The Scandal of Shakespeare's Sonnets
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In the following essay, de Grazia asserts that in terms of Elizabethan cultural imperatives, the primary scandal of Shakespeare's sequence is the depiction, in the final twenty-eight lyrics, of a love that threatens to annihilate the patriarchal and hierarchical order of society.
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Mel and Sal: Some Problems in Sonnet-Theory
(summary)
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Language And Imagery
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The Innocent Insinuations of Wit: The Strategy of Language in Shakespeare's Sonnets
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In this essay, Krieger scrutinizes the internal logic of several sonnets in which the movement from one set of images to another appears spontaneous yet is, in his judgment, the result of a conscious strategy. In these sonnets, he maintains, Shakespeare develops a subtle dialectic which the reader does not perceive until the final lines, when the various images merge into one, inevitable resolution.
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Shakespeare
(summary)
In the following excerpt, Ferry calls attention to the poet-lover's assertions that through his manipulation of language he can transform nature and substitute the laws of poetic order for those of the temporal world. She focuses her analysis on the eternizing sonnets—particularly Sonnets 15, 18, and 65—to demonstrate how Shakespeare creates verbal constructs that are based on human experience yet nevertheless alter that experience and the laws of nature.
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Dramatic Metaphor: The Shakespearean Sonnet
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In the excerpt below, Bermann discusses Shakespeare's unique creation of a dramatic lyric, focusing on Sonnet 87 to illustrate how the poet evokes a sense of interior dialogue and involves the reader in resolving the ambiguities of his metaphors.
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The Innocent Insinuations of Wit: The Strategy of Language in Shakespeare's Sonnets
(summary)
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Overviews
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Sonnets (Vol. 62)
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Criticism: Overviews And General Studies
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Criticism and the Analysis of Craft: The Sonnets
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In the following essay, originally published in 1974, Colie explores Shakespeare's sonnets, and contends that Shakespeare made significant deviations from contemporary sonneteering practices.
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Introduction to Shakespeare's Sonnets
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In the following excerpt, Duncan-Jones reviews the publication history of Shakespeare's sonnets, focusing on several aspects of critical debate related to the 1609 publication.
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Shakespeare at Sonnets
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In the following essay, Fraser analyzes Shakespeare's departures from standard sonnet form and argues that such deviations were intentional and serve to enhance the quality of the poetry.
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Criticism and the Analysis of Craft: The Sonnets
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Criticism: Language And Imagery
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Money and Love in Shakespeare's Sonnets
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In the following essay, Goldstien explores the way in which Shakespeare associates money, love, and art in his sonnets. The critic advocates a balanced interpretation of Shakespeare's money imagery, noting that the poet uses monetary terms to both wound and to praise, and that this underscores society's ambiguous attitude toward wealth.
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What May Words Do? The Performative of Praise in Shakespeare's Sonnets
(summary)
In the following essay, Schalkwyk maintains that in the sonnets Shakespeare used language as a method of social action.
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Money and Love in Shakespeare's Sonnets
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Criticism: Sonnets To The Fair Young Man
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Making Love Out of Nothing at All: The Issue of Story in Shakespeare's Procreation Sonnets
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In the following essay, Crosman studies the first seventeen sonnets and contends that a distinct narrative may be discerned. My thesis is that there is a discernible story in Shakespeare's sonnets, and I will support that thesis with a reading of sonnets 1-17, the so-called procreation sonnets. Because there is widespread distrust of finding narrative in the sonnets, I will begin by discussing the nature of that distrust, and will then argue in favor of permitting Shakespeare's sonnets to tell a story.
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Since First Your Eye I Eyed: Shakespeare's Sonnets and the Poetics of Narcissism
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In the essay below, Hedley argues that Shakespeare's sonnets to the fair young man are narcissistic in their distinctive use of language and form.
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The Silent Speech of Shakespeare's Sonnets
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In the following essay, originally presented in 1996, Wright maintains that Shakespeare’s sonnets to the young man introduced a new mode of poetic discourse.
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Making Love Out of Nothing at All: The Issue of Story in Shakespeare's Procreation Sonnets
(summary)
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Criticism: Overviews And General Studies
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Sonnets (Vol. 75)
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Shakespeare's Sonnets and Patronage Art
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In the following essay, Kernan analyzes the sonnets within the context of the relationship between patron and artist in Renaissance England. The critic maintains that the collection of poems may be viewed as a loosely structured story concerning the relationship between an older poet of lower social standing and a young aristocratic patron.
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Criticism: Character Studies
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Sincerity and Subterfuge in Three Shakespearean Sonnet Groups
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In the following essay, Andrews explores Shakespeare's sonnets to the young man. The critic contends that the speaker of these sonnets should be understood as a dramatic character separate from his creator, and demonstrates that through the course of the sequence the speaker journeys from insincerity and delusion to anguish.
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The Function of the Dark Lady in Shakespeare's Sonnets
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In the following essay, Davey contends that in Shakespeare's sonnets to the dark lady, the poet moves away from the idealization of the first group of sonnets—those addressed to the young man—and instead emphasizes the dark lady's physical, earthly nature and beauty.
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Sincerity and Subterfuge in Three Shakespearean Sonnet Groups
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Criticism: Themes
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Shakespeare's ‘Perjur'd Eye.’
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In the following essay, Fineman studies the language, imagery, and rhetorical structure of Shakespeare's sonnets.
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‘In Thievish Ways’: Tropes and Robbers in Shakespeare's Sonnets and Early Modern England
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In the following excerpt, Dubrow contends that thievery, as it existed in Elizabethan England, is used metaphorically in Shakespeare's sonnets to suggest various types of loss and destabilization.
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Conflicting Monuments: Time, Beyond Time, and the Poetics of Shakespeare's Dramatic and Nondramatic Sonnets
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In the following essay, Hart explores Shakespeare's treatment of the themes of time and death in the sonnets, observing that Shakespeare's rhetoric in the sonnets transcends the boundaries of language and poetic modes.
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Shakespeare's ‘Perjur'd Eye.’
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Shakespeare's Sonnets and Patronage Art
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- Further Reading