In this darkly satirical novel, a Columbia University English professor's life is turned upside down when it starts to follow the plot of Shakespeare's sonnets.

In his own time, Shakespeare was best known to the reading public as a poet, and even today copies of his Sonnets regularly outsell everything else he wrote. For this new edition, Stephen Orgel offers a warmly personal and original introduction to Shakespeare's best-loved and most widely read poems. Careful readings emphasize their sexual and temperamental ambiguity, their textual history and the special perils an editor faces when modernizing the original quarto's spelling, punctuation, and even layout. The edition retains the text of the Sonnets prepared by Gwynne Evans, together with his detailed notes on each, and a line-by-line commentary. Throughout, the 'voices' of the sonnets appear in all their intricacy and dramatic power.

This introduction provides a concise overview of the central issues and critical responses to Shakespeare’s sonnets, looking at the themes, images, and structure of his work, as well as the social and historical circumstances surrounding their creation. Explores the biographical mystery of the identities of the characters addressed. Examines the intangible aspects of each sonnet, such as eroticism and imagination. A helpful appendix offers a summary of each poem with descriptions of key literary figures.

The classic love poems of William Shakespeare are accompanied by critical commentary.

Shakespeare became famous as a dazzling poet before most people even knew that he wrote plays. His sonnets are the English language’s most extraordinary anatomy of love in all its dimensions–desire and despair, longing and loss, adoration and disgust. To read them is to confront morality and eternity in the same breath. Produced under the editorial supervision of Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen, two of today’s most accomplished Shakespearean scholars, The Sonnets and Other Poems includes all of Shakespeare’s sonnets, the long narrative poems “Venus and Adonis” and “The Rape of Lucrece,” and several other shorter works. Incorporating definitive texts and authoritative notes from William Shakespeare: Complete Works, this unique volume also includes an expanded Introduction by Jonathan Bate that places the poems in literary and historical context and illuminates their relationship to Shakespeare’s dramatic writing. Also featured are key facts about the individual selections; an index of the first lines of the sonnets; a chronology of Shakespeare’s life and times; and recommendations for further reading. Ideal for students and general readers alike, this modern and accessible edition sets a new standard in Shakespearean literature for the twenty-first century.

+Steven Curtis Lance has created this book as an offering of love to his muse, Silke, or, as he calls her, "Silke Shining in the Sky." Within the graceful covers of this beautifully presented Expanded Edition of his magnum opus, the respected BrainMeta.co

Though Sonnets Are, Generally, Easy Poems, Shakespeare S Sonnets Are Not, And Very Naturally, He Being A Master-Mind, His Sonnets Are Far From Easy To Understand. The Principal Objective Of This Book Is To Explain The Sonnets For Common Readers, And To Discuss Some Very Topical Questions About Them. The Author Persistently Kept In Mind The Difficulties Of General Readers In Understanding The Sonnets, And So He Meticulously Avoided Pedantry. The Book May Be Deemed To Be Divided Into Two Parts : The First Part Discusses Some Very Important General Topics Relating To The Sonnets; And The Second Part Devotes Itself Entirely To Explaining, Line By Line, The Sonnets, Keeping Close To The Themes Of Them. Difficult Words And Concepts Have Been Carefully Explained. The Texts Of All The 154 Sonnets Have Been Given For The Benefit Of Readers.