The art of Shakespeare's sonnets / Helen Vendler.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Vendler, Helen, 1933-2024.

Contributor:

Horace Howard Furness Memorial Library (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616. Sonnets.

Shakespeare, William.

Sonnets, English--History and criticism.

Sonnets, English.

Genre:

Sound recordings.

Physical Description:

xviii, 672 pages : illustrations ; 27 cm + 1 audio disc (digital ; 4 3/4 in.)

4 3/4 in.

Other Title:

Sound disc has title: Shakespeare's sonnets : Helen Vendler reads

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1997.

System Details:

1.4 m/s

digital recording

Summary:

In detailed commentaries on Shakespeare's 154 sonnets, Vendler reveals previously unperceived imaginative and stylistic features of the poems, pointing out not only new levels of import in particular lines, but also the ways in which the four parts of each sonnet work together to enact emotion and create dynamic effect. The commentaries - presented alongside the complete text of each poem, as printed in the 1609 edition and in a modernized version - offer fresh perspectives on the individual poems, and, taken together, provide a full picture of Shakespeare's techniques as a working poet. With the help of Vendler's acute eye, we gain an appreciation of "Shakespeare's elated variety of invention, his ironic capacity, his astonishing refinement of technique, and, above all, the reach of his skeptical imaginative intent". Vendler's understanding of the sonnets informs her readings on an accompanying compact disk, which is bound with the book. This recorded presentation of a selection of the poems, in giving aural form to Shakespeare's words, heightens our awareness of voice in lyric and adds the dimension of sound to poems too often registered merely as written words.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 657-667) and index.

ISBN:

0674637119

OCLC:

36806589