Books with title The Sonnets

Mystery shrouds the publication of SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS in 1609. There is no real question that they are authentic, but did William Shakespeare himself authorize their publication? And who is this “W.H” to whom the volume is dedicated? For that matter, is this the author’s or the publisher’s dedication? What is clear is that the sonnets of Shakespeare have come to define the English sonnet for modern readers. They contain lines (Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?) that are among the most memorable in English literature. They are romantic, brooding, jealous, and at times bawdy. They are also wondrously written and will doubtless continue their exalted place in Elizabethan literature.

Shakespeare's sonnets is the title of a collection of 154 sonnets by William Shakespeare, which covers themes such as the passage of time, love, beauty and mortality. The first 126 sonnets are addressed to a young man; the last 28 to a woman. The sonnets were first published in a 1609 quarto with the full stylised title: SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS. Never before Imprinted. (although sonnets 138 and 144 had previously been published in the 1599 miscellany The Passionate Pilgrim). The quarto ends with "A Lover's Complaint", a narrative poem of 47 seven-line stanzas written in rhyme royal. There has been critical debate regarding its authorship. The sonnets to the young man express overwhelming, obsessional love. The main issue of debate has always been whether it remained platonic or became physical. The first 17 poems, traditionally called the procreation sonnets, are addressed to the young man urging him to marry and have children in order to immortalize his beauty by passing it to the next generation. Other sonnets express the speaker's love for the young man; brood upon loneliness, death, and the transience of life; seem to criticise the young man for preferring a rival poet; express ambiguous feelings for the speaker's mistress; and pun on the poet's name. The final two sonnets are allegorical treatments of Greek epigrams referring to the "little love-god" Cupid. The sonnets are almost all constructed from three quatrains, which are four-line stanzas, and a final couplet composed in iambic pentameter.[21] This is also the meter used extensively in Shakespeare's plays. The rhyme scheme is abab cdcd efef gg. Sonnets using this scheme are known as Shakespearean sonnets. Often, either the beginning of the third quatrain or of the last couplet mark the volta ("turn"), or the line in which the mood of the poem shifts, and the poet expresses a revelation or epiphany.[22] There are a few exceptions: Sonnets 99, 126, and 145. Number 99 has fifteen lines. Number 126 consists of six couplets, and two blank lines marked with italic brackets; 145 is in iambic tetrameters, not pentameters. In one other variation on the standard structure, found for example in sonnet 29, the rhyme scheme is changed by repeating the second (b) rhyme of quatrain one as the second (f) rhyme of quatrain three. One interpretation is that Shakespeare's sonnets are a pastiche or parody of the 300-year-old tradition of Petrarchan love sonnets; Shakespeare consciously inverts conventional gender roles as delineated in Petrarchan sonnets to create a more complex depiction of human love.[31] He plays with gender roles (20), comments on political events (124), makes fun of love (128), speaks openly about sexual desire (129), parodies beauty (130) and even references pornography (151). In a dozen of the sonnets to the youth, Shakespeare also refers to his "disgrace":[32] "My name be buried where my body is / And live no more to shame nor me nor you." Shakespeare's Sonnets can be seen as a prototype, or even the beginning, of a new kind of "modern" love poetry. During the eighteenth century, The Sonnets' reputation in England was relatively low; as late as 1805, The Critical Review could still credit John Milton with the perfection of the English sonnet. As part of the renewed interest in Shakespeare's original work that accompanied Romanticism, The Sonnets rose steadily in reputation during the nineteenth century.[33] The Sonnets have great cross-cultural importance and influence. They have been translated into every major written language, including German, French, Italian,[34] Japanese,[35] Turkish,[36] Spanish, Portuguese, Russian,[37] Afrikaans, Esperanto, Albanian, Arabic, Hebrew, [38] Welsh and Yiddish.

Every bit as dazzling as the best of his dramas and comedies, Shakespeare's sonnets represent one of finest bodies of poetry ever penned. And because they are love poems of an extraordinarily personal variety, these timeless sonnets also afford us our most intimate glimpses of the soul behind the genius that was Shakespeare. As read by the legendary Sir John Gielgud -- perhaps the greatest interpreter of the Bard we shall ever know -- the sonnets in this selection come alive with all the passion and profound human insight of their brilliant creator.

Shakespeare’s sonnets are lyrical, haunting, beautiful, and often breathtaking, representing one of the finest bodies of poetry ever penned. They demonstrate the writer’s skill in capturing the full range of human emotions within a carefully prescribed form and creating something unique in every one. Some are familiar—Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?—others unexpected, but together they form an extraordinary meditation on the nature of love, lust, beauty, and time.

‘Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom’Sonnets are for romantics, starry-eyed lovers and ardent hearts. And Shakespeare’s sonnets are the best ever written.But this is why they are also for cynics, for star-crossed lovers and for those who know the anguish of unrequited love. Some of them are written to a young man, some of them to a woman. And although the poems are full of mystery – why did Shakespeare write them, what was his sexuality? – each one speaks to us from across the centuries of love, hate and the intensity of being alive.Includes exclusive content: In the 'Backstory' you can find a short, handy, funny guide to everything you might want to know about Shakespeare and his sonnets.‘This is a crazy, all-consuming, feverish and sweaty love; love, in all its uncut, full-strength intensity; an adolescent love’ Don Paterson, Guardian

'I thought I could, with verse iambic, prySome sense from nonsense, and our modern sceneDepict and mock, while using "thee" and "thy"In pages fit to rest by thy latrine.'Shakespeare s sonnets are among the great achievements in world literature. Alas, the immortal Bard never used his command of iambic pentameter to explore such themes as porn, Snapchat and Austin Powers.#Sonnets is a collection of hilarious and inappropriate poems complete with illustrations of Elizabethan RoboCop and Snoop Dogg in tights. Musing on everything from Donald Trump to Tinder, comedy writer Lucien Young offers a Shakespearean take on the absurdity of modern life.

To read Shakespeare’s sonnets as originally published in 1609 is to come to terms with a rather different text than that found in the collected works. Here they stand alone as the verse of an Elizabethan poet, as a fresh and consistent body of writing. Although the book has been studied for centuries, its contents are still wrapped in mystery. The precise circumstances of publication may never be known: it remains uncertain when the poems were written and to whom, whether the text was revised for publication or even authorized, and whether its appearance was designed to tantalize a knowing coterie or delight the wider world with (as Keats wrote) "fine things said unintentionally." This Octavo Edition features beautiful images of the entire book, searchable live text, and bibliographical information. Commentary by Arthur Freeman.