World of Shakespeare: The Complete Plays and Sonnets of William Shakespeare (38 Volume Library)

Average customer rating:

Almost perfect deal

Super deal! Great investment.

The Value Purchase of the Year

GREAT value.

Glad I Bought These Volumes

World of Shakespeare: The Complete Plays and Sonnets of William Shakespeare (38 Volume Library)
William Shakespeare
Manufacturer: Penguin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Shakespeare, William | ( S ) | Authors, A-Z | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Hardcover | Shakespeare, William | ( S ) | Authors, A-Z | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0143104802

Book Description

The World of Shakespeare: The Complete Plays and Sonnets of William Shakespeare (38 Volume Library) By William Shakespeare Stephen Orgel and A. R. Braunmiller, General Editors

Amazon.com Exclusive

The Pelican Shakespeare is available in hardcover for the first time in one complete collection only at Amazon.com.

For anyone with an abiding love of the Bard and his to all of Shakepeares singular contributiOn to English literature, this complete library combines enduring beauty with the scholarship and authority demanded by modern readers. Easier to read and enjoy than massive, single-volume editions, these individual volumes feature authori tative text, essays on how the plays would have been performed in Shakespeare's day, and notes valuable for general readers, teachers, students, and theater professionals. Here, in 38 truly stunning heirloom volumes, are William Shakespeare's classic plays and sonnets in the only complete, individually-bound set of Shakespeare's works currently available. The tragedies, comedies, histories, and poetry, so beloved by millions of readers and theater-goers, are reproduced here in luxurious, linen-bound hardcovers, enhanced by silver stamping on the covers and spines, and sewn-in, satin ribbon markers.

The distinguished Pelican Shakespeare editions have sold five million copies. Since the series debuted more than forty years ago, developments in scholarship have revolutionized our understanding of William Shakespeare, his time, and his works. The general editors of the Pelican Shakespeare, Stephen Orgel of Stanford University and A. R. Braunmiller of UCLA, have assembled a team of six eminent scholars who, along with the general editors themselves, have prepared new introductions and note * Authoritative and meticulously researched texts * Illuminating new introductions and notes by distinguished authors * Essays on Shakespeare's life, the theatrical world of his time, and the selection of texts * A handsome new design inside and out * Deluxe packaging, including a full-linen case with silver stamping, ribbon marker, printed endpapers, and acid-free paper * Line numbers marking every tenth line and footnote references * Both glossorial and explanatory notes appearing conveniently at the foot of the page

Included are:

Tragedies

Antony and Cleopatra

Coriolanus

Hamlet

Julius Caesar

King Lear

Macbeth

Othello

Romeo and Juliet

Timon of Athens

Titus Andronicus

Histories

Henry IV, Part I

Henry IV, Part II

Henry V

Henry VI, Part I

Henry VI, Part II

Henry VI, Part III

Henry VIII

King John

Richard II

Richard III

Comedies

All's Well That Ends Well

As You Like It

The Comedy of Errors

Cymbeline

Love's Labor's Lost

Measure for Measure

The Merry Wives of Windsor

The Merchant of Venice

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Much Ado About Nothing

Pericles

The Taming of the Shrew

The Tempest

Troilus and Cressida

Twelfth Night

Two Gentlemen of Verona

The Winter's Tale

Poetry

The Sonnets

Customer Reviews:

Almost perfect deal.......2007-10-03

Should I judge this collection by price or quality? I'll try to blend them. At the time of this writing, I ordered it from Amazon for $89.70, which was marked down from $299. Sounds hard to believe, and after owning it, it still is. At this price, this is, without doubt, a major, total, complete deal. However, I give it four stars instead of five because it is 99% of Shakespeare's complete works. Why not include the rest? Why, why, why? It'd take two more volumes, one for his non-sonnet poems and one for THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN, which is now officially part of the Shakespeare canon. It's very easy to get these works, but they wouldn't match your 38-volume set. Still, at anything less than $100, this set is a steal, especially considering that buying all these plays even as used paperbacks would probably cost more, and these are new, 8.5" by 5.5" hardcovers. Call me a nitpicker, but I just don't get why this collection didn't go that extra half-yard. Still, I bought it anyway and am very happy with it.
As for supplements, each book has a basic intro and meanings of archaic words and phrases printed at the bottom of each page.

Super deal! Great investment........2007-09-02

I read the other reviews about this being a great deal for what you're getting. Took a chance....and they were right. After visiting London this summer and realizing I'm literary-deficient, my goal was to read all of Shakespeare's plays once I got home. So I needed a starter set. For $90, I have just that. And much easier to manage that a huge compilation book that I was considering. The book covers are simple, but elegant. Just the right size--easy to carry in my bag to work. I'm very happy with the set--it is a good investment.

The Value Purchase of the Year.......2007-09-01

This is an excellent edition, the volumes are extremely nice to read: larger and clearer than paperbacks; handier, lighter and much easier to handle than one-volume editions. It's the buy of the year. You'll never forgive yourself if you let this slip away. It's a cliche, but true in the case: I would have bought it at twice this price and considered myself lucky.

GREAT value. .......2007-08-08

I bought this as a gift for my partner as a graduation present. It is a REALLY great deal: I can't believe how cheap it is for what you get.

The quality of the books is really high, the paper is lovely stock and the binding is excellent. All in all, this is a really wonderful product and definetely worth forking out the cash for. When you think about it, it's an absolute steal.

Do it!

ps. it arrived REALLY quickly. I am in Australia and it was here within 7 working days (i paid for the mid range postal option, whatever it is called).

Glad I Bought These Volumes.......2007-05-15

The reviews encouraged me to buy this series, and I'm very glad I did. I've read a number of different Shakespeare editions; my favorite had been the Folger. But these books are luxurious, and comparing one to a Folger proves the quality of the paper and the clear, easy-to-read text. At the $89 price - and even higher - these volumes are a rare bargain.

Average customer rating:

Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage
Shakespeare is always a 5 star, However Print is Small & Smudged
Sonnets with All the Safety Features
Very good
Definitive edition for scholars and advanced students

Shakespeare's Sonnets (Yale Nota Bene)
William Shakespeare
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0300085060

Book Description

This prize-winning work provides a facsimile of the 1609 Quarto printed in parallel with a conservatively edited, modernized text, as well as commentary that ranges from brief glosses to substantial critical essays. Stephen Booth's notes help a modern reader toward the kind of understanding that Renaissance readers brought to the works. Winner of the ninth annual James Russell Lowell Prize of the Modern Language Association.

Customer Reviews:

Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage.......2007-02-15

Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,
To thee I send this written embassage,
To witness duty, not to show my wit.
(Sonnet 26.)

How to do justice to the legacy of literary history's greatest mind - moreover in such a limited review? Forget Goethe's "universal genius" and his rebel contemporary Schiller; forget the 19th century masters; forget contemporary literature: with the possible (!) exception of three Greek gentlemen named Aischylos, Sophocles and Euripides, a certain Frenchman called Poquelin (a/k/a Moliere), and that infamous Irishman Oscar Wilde, there's more wit in a single line of Shakespeare's than in an entire page of most other, even great, authors' works. And I'm not saying this in ignorance of, or in order to slight any other writer: it's precisely my admiration of the world's literary giants, past and present, that makes me appreciate Shakespeare even more - and that although I'm aware that he repeatedly borrowed from pre-existing material and that even the (sole) authorship of the works published under his name isn't established beyond doubt. For ultimately, the only thing that matters to me is the brilliance of those works themselves; and quite honestly, the mysteries continuing to enshroud his person, to me, only enhance his larger-than-life stature.

The precise dating of Shakespeare's sonnets - like other poets', a response to the 1591 publication of Sir Philip Sidney's "Astrophil and Stella" - is an even greater guessing game than that of his plays: although #138 and #144 (slightly modified) appeared in 1599's "Passionate Pilgrim," most were probably circulated privately, and written years before their first - unauthorized, though still authoritative - 1609 publication; possibly beginning in 1592-1593.

Format-wise, they adopt the Elizabethan fourteen-line-structure of three quatrains of iambic pentameters expressing a series of increasingly intense ideas, resolved in a closing couplet; with an abab-cdcd-efef-gg rhyme form. (Sole exceptions: #99 - first quatrain amplified by one line - #126 - six couplets & only twelve lines total - #145 - written in tetrameter - and #146 - omission of the second line's beginning; the subject of a lasting debate.) Their order is thematic rather than chronological, although beyond the fact that the first 126 are addressed to a young man - maybe the Earl of Pembroke or Southampton, maybe Sir Robert Dudley, the natural son of Queen Elizabeth's "Sweet Robin," the Earl of Leicester - (the first seventeen, possibly commissioned by the addressee's family, pressing his marriage and production of an heir), and ##127-152 (or 127-133 and 147-152) to an exotic woman of questionable virtues only known as "The Dark Lady," even in that respect much remains unclear; including the nature of Shakespeare's relationship with the two main addressees, regarding which the sonnets' often ambiguous metaphors invoke much speculation. #145 is probably addressed to Shakespeare's wife; the closing couplet plays on her maiden name ("['I hate' from] hate away she threw And saved my life, [saying 'not you']:" "Hathaway - Anne saved my life"), several others contain puns on the name Will and its double meaning(s) (exactly fourteen in the naughty #135: "Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will;" and seven in the similarly mischievous #136), and the last two draw on the then-popular Cupid theme. Sometimes, placement seems linked to contents, e.g., in #8 (music: an octave has eight notes), #12 and #60 (time: twelve hours to both day and night; sixty minutes to an hour); and in the famous #55, which praises poetry's everlasting power and as whose never-expressly-named subject Shakespeare himself emerges in a comparison with Horace's Ode 3.30 - in turn written in first person singular and thus, denoting its own author as the builder of its "monument more lasting than bronze" ("Exegi monumentum aere perennius") - as well as through the number "5"'s optical similarity to the letter "S," making the sonnet's number a shorthand reference for "5hake5peare" or "5hakespeare's 5onnets," echoed by numerous words containing an "S" in the text.

Of indescribable linguistic beauty, elegance and complexity, Shakespeare's sonnets owe their timeless appeal to their supreme compositional values, the universality of their themes, and their keen insights into the human heart and soul; as much as their transcendence of the era's poetic conventions which, following Petrarch, heavily idealized the addressee's qualities: a form new and exciting twohundred years earlier, but encrusted in cliche in the late 1500s. Indeed, Shakespeare's "Dark Lady" Sonnet #130 owes its particular fame to its clever puns on that very style, which went overboard with references to its golden-haired, starry- (beamy-, sparkling, sunny-) eyed, cherry- (strawberry-, vermilion-, coral-) lipped, rosy- (crimson-, purple-, dawn-) cheeked, ivory- (lily-, carnation-, crystal-, silver-, snowy-, swan-white) skinned, pearl-teethed, honey- (nectar-, music-) tongued, goddess-like objects. "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;" the Bard countered, proceeded to describe her breasts as "dun," her hair as "black wires," and her breath as "reek[ing]," and denied her any divine or angelic attributes. "And yet," he concluded: "by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare."

Arguably, Shakespeare's very choice of addressees (a young man - also the subject of the famously romantic #18: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day;" the first of several sonnets promising his immortalization in poetry - as well as the "Dark Lady," in turn introduced under the notion "black is beautiful" in #127) itself suggests a break with tradition; and compared to his contemporaries' poetry, even the equally-famous #116's on its face rather conventional praise of love's constancy ("Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments"), echoed in the poet's vow to vanquish time in #123, sounds fairly restrained. But ultimately, Shakespeare's sonnets - like his entire work - simply defy categorization. They are, as rival Ben Jonson acknowledged, written "for all time," just as the Bard himself immodestly claimed:

'Gainst death and all oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
(Sonnet 55.)

Shakespeare is always a 5 star, However Print is Small & Smudged.......2007-01-22

Who is to judge Shakespeare? Here all I can question is the medium. I purchased this book expecting normal sized print as it is a dimensionally larger than average sized paperback. Ironically however, the print in this edition is rather smallish, compressed, and often smudged throughout the book.

If want want a scholarly text this is a good one. However, if you wear reading glasses and simply want to read Shakespeare's Sonnets in a relaxed way without squinting, you may want to look elsewhere.

Sonnets with All the Safety Features.......2004-12-04

I once had a philosophy professor who memorized a new sonnet every day, perhaps because he felt there is so much to learn from each one. Unpacking a sonnet, really making it your own, is a beautiful and intensely laborious process.

Booth helps. This edition gives the sonnets in a clean, contemporary, sensibly edited typeface, and on the facing page a facsimile of the 1609 edition of the sonnets, so you never have to choose between readability and historical rececption. You get both. Plus, Booth gives precise supporting material for each poem, crystallizing a few hundred years of thought and meditation into an easily referenced appendix. Best part: it's cheap and there are tons of used copies around.

Good stuff!

Very good.......2004-01-12

This is an amazing book - excellent for the student of Shakespeare. Wonderful reference and resource book to keep on hand. More information than any other collection of sonnets I've seen.

Definitive edition for scholars and advanced students.......2002-11-06

Professor Booth's unsurpassed edition of the immortal Sonnets has an exhaustive consideration of all the issues that can perplex a reader, but it may proving daunting to beginning students. Undergraduate students may wish to begin with Katherine Duncan-Jones edition from Routledge (The Arden Shakespeare) or Burrows edition from Oxford. Advanced students in Shakespeare or English literature who intend to continue mining this ore over the years will find Booth's edition a precious resource for their library.

Book Description

'The annotation is consistently thoughtful and well judged, giving plenty of precise help with lexical and syntactical problems, and offering valuable verbal and cultural analogues from contemporary literature' 'No edition of these difficult and controversial poems will command agreement at all points, but this must now be the edition of first resort' Paul Hammond, Review of English Studies 'sharpens our focus on the documentary record of the Sonnets, and gives the best scholarly account yet of some of its words.' Alastair Fowler, Times Literary Supplement "The new edition...edited by Katherine Duncan-Jones, is the clearest, most complete and up-to-date there is. She is the first editor for general readers not to mumble when dealing with the homoerotic aspect. Under her meticulous direction, the sequence opens out like a magical garden, its beauties enhanced, its mysterious prospects illuminated." Duncan Fallowell, The Independent `It is Duncan-Jones's intention as scholar and critic to confront the issue of sexuality which Kerrigan and other editors have consistently side-stepped...Hers is an edition which uniquely makes the Sonnets issue from the body's moods as well as the mind's.' Tom Paulin, London Review of Books `This new edition, handsome, crisp in annotation, and rich in historical detail, shows that the Sonnets are effectively Shakespeare's life's work...Its most radical claim is not the familiar one that the poems are homosexual, but that Shakespeare authorised their publication.' Evening Standard

Customer Reviews:

Shakespeare,s dedicatee " unmasked".......2007-07-04

Katherine Duncan-Jones in the Arden Shakespeare's Sonnets is closer to Stephen Booth's linguistic approach from Helen Vendler,s artistic analysis of the Sonnets. I think she made a mature choice because Old Will in his love lyrics is ambigous and misleading.His words are loaded with meanings and accordingly are open to more than one interpretation.Publishing the detailed notes and commentry on the same page looks more practical and helpful, not only for the students but also for the general reader.Nevertheless, Hank Wittemore's version of Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, recently published for the first time , emphasizes that the dedicatee of Shakespeare,s Sonnets is Henry Wriothesley, Third Earl of Southampton and not William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke as the Arden,s editor of the Sonnets suggests in her introduction. Since 400 years the dedicatee,s identity had been masked. A.L. Rowse in 1964 published his version of the Sonnets and held that Shakespeare dedicated his poems to his close friend and patron Earl of Southampton. Now Wriothesley proved what Rowse had cocluded in his literary and historical researching half a century ago.
In the next edition of the Arden,s Sonnets I hope Katherine Duncan-Jones sheds more illuminating light on this issue which puzzled many Shakespearians for a very long time.

Abdulsattar Jawad
Duke University

The Introduction is worth the price of the book, ten times the price.......2007-02-06

Ms. Duncan-Jones' Introduction is an extraordinary example of scholarship. To say that the Sonnets have been controversial throughout the time since their publication is a mild understatement. Ms. Duncan-Jones casts a brilliant and unwavering spotlight on these controversies and resolves them.

Any serious student of Shakespeare must read this Introduction.

If there is a failing in the book, it is in the actual footnotes to the Sonnets themselves. But in the context of Booth's footnotes, for example, this failing is insignificant. Anyone who wants a line-by-line exegesis of the Sonnets has many resources available.

Go get this book and read the Introduction!

Excellent edition.......2006-05-27

I recently used the Arden edition of the Sonnets in a graduate level course on Renaissance literature. It's useful, too, to have Helen Vendler's "Art of the Sonnet," as well as the Penguin edition (fewer notes than the Arden). Quite simply, the Arden excels in the scholarly apparatus. Also, for a concise, readable supplement, include Greenblatt's "Will in the World" (the chapter on the sonnets). But for a close study of the sonnets, if you need a single edition, Arden is terrific.

Ardens are Fantastic.......2005-09-12

The secondary source material found in the appendices, the fantastic footnotes, the capacioius introductions, the big clear typeface, the textual editing decisions, all make the Ardens the best single-volume Shakespeares by a long shot. The rest pale by comparison.

The only drawback, god forgive this y-chromosomed curmudgeon, that I can see in this particular Arden is that the editor, Katherine Duncan-Jones, often tends to lean a bit too far to the left, indulging into too much gender politic-ing.

Duncan-Jones also spends a quite a bit of time arguing in a rather extended manner for composition dates that are self-consciously 'provocative' and seem to be much too speculative for an introduction.

One could match this with Booth's version, which by comparison seems perhaps a touch more shallow and hidebound-- but more solid, and get a nice complimentary set of typefaces and editorial views that would balance out nicely, I would suspect.

Great books come to those who wait.......2001-05-18

I am a great fan of Shakespeare, so when I bought this book what I was expecting wasn't what I saw. I saw the most intriguing sonnets probaly ever known to man. It wasn't all about love and fear. It was involving a great many things. It had all the human feelings, sadness, happieness, hate, love, curiosity, fear, pain, grief, stress, and you get the ideal. I don't want to give it away so if you seem interested read this wounderful book.

Love Poems & Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Average customer rating:

Shakespeare, Like Caviar, is an Aquired Taste
Love Poems and Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Love Poems & Sonnets of William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
Manufacturer: Doubleday
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Love Poems | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0385017332
Release Date: 1957-09-03

Book Description

The greatest sonnets ever written, by the greatest poet and playwright in the English language--now in a handsome edition featuring exquisite color illustrations.

Customer Reviews:

Shakespeare, Like Caviar, is an Aquired Taste.......2004-11-06

To be quite truthful I must say that I found Shakespeare's sonnets a little hard to digest until I decided to roll up my intellectual sleeves and work at it, because I thought it would be good for me.

They are short and easy to read, but in order to get the most out of them I found a quiet place, where noone would laugh, and read them aloud.

By the time I got to sonnet #50 they were making sense. I began to highlight my favorite ones. Some of them I read to other people. One or two made me laugh, several moved me emotionally. When I was finished I felt richer for having made the effort.

It is not hard to give these poems and sonnets 5 stars.

HOWEVER I'm not sure you should purchase the book. I found some dated used copies of "The Sonnets of William Shakespeare with the famous Temple Notes and an introduction by Robert O. Ballou" on Amazon.com for $ .14 each. Yes, that's fourteen cents for small hardback copies in great shape. Sure they're dated, but for me the contents are more important than the commentaries, so age doesn't matter much.

Love Poems and Sonnets of William Shakespeare.......2000-06-14

This book is full of Shakespeare's work, so if you don't like the way he uses the English language do not get this book. On the other hand, if you do enjoy and understand his plays, (Everyone should be familiar with at least one. Remember highschool?)this book is a must! All of the poems deal with love; lost love, unforgettable love, forbidden love, everlasting love, obsessive love, first love, life changing love, ect.,ect. These poems seem to be telling a story, each one different, but as emotional as the one before. If you have a hard time letting someone know how you feel or putting your emotions into words, this book could be the answer. To the women, there are so many different Sonnets that I could relate to situations during my lifetime that seemed to be telling the story of my life. If you know an unromantic guy, this would be a great gift. This would help him sweep ladies off of their feet! Actually, this book would really be good for anyone of all ages, I mean, it IS filled with LOVE. It is a welcome change to the fast,unforgiving world we live in today!

Average customer rating:

A BRILLIANT READING OF SHAKESPEARE

Shakespeare's Sonnets
William Shakespeare
Manufacturer: Highbridge Audio
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: 1598870076

Book Description

The most celebrated love poems in the English language, the 154 sonnets of Shakespeare, written from 1593-1601, are read by actor Simon Callow (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Shakespeare in Love).

Unabridged; 2 ¼ hours on 2 CDs

Customer Reviews:

A BRILLIANT READING OF SHAKESPEARE.......2005-12-03

Tongue tied when it comes to telling someone how much you care? Send this audio book to that special person. You'll not only be thought romantic but erudite as well.

After all, even at your best you probably couldn't come up with
"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date."

These love poems have been extolled for over 400 years, quoted, misquoted, and copied. Written between 1593 - 1601, to a great degree the 154 sonnets reveal the Bard's thoughts on the perplexities of life - love, honor, rebirth. Perhaps most important to many we also find his attraction to the "Dark Lady." Is there a reference in Sonnet 151 with "Love is too young to know what conscience is...."?

All the world loves a mystery which may be why we're so fascinated by the Dark Lady. Her identity is unknown, it is not even known whether she was a real woman with whom Shakespeare had a relationship or a manifestation of his creativity. Some surmise that she was so called because her hair was black and her skin dusk colored, thus she was Spanish. Others posit that "dark" did not refer to her appearance but rather to the black or dark feelings of desire. This discussion may go on indefinitely.

Unfortunately, British actor Simon Callow's brilliant reading of the sonnets only lasts two hours. However, the replay button is at the ready. "Shakespeare's Sonnets" is a keeper to be enjoyed over and over again.

- Gail Cooke

Average customer rating:

Bard's books barred by bonehead
A dramatic and accurate expression of the inner life . . .
A Tough Slog but Worth It (Maybe)
A must have for Shakespeare lovers
More Than An Outline, Less Than A Draft, Not A Book

The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets
Helen Vendler
Manufacturer: Belknap Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0674637119

Amazon.com

Helen Vendler's The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets is an incredible work of analysis, criticism--and obsession. In giving these complex poems a close reading, Vendler attempts to enter the mind and esthetics of her subject, resulting in an amazing and comprehensive commentary on the sonnets. But this is not a book for Shakespeare neophytes. Vendler assumes a degree of familiarity with Shakespeare's sonnets, and she writes in the language of literary criticism: "...the couplet--placed not as resolution but as coda--can then stand in any number of relations ... to the preceding argument."). However, for those readers who have a basic knowledge of Renaissance poetics, and Shakespeare's sonnets in particular, The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets is a gold mine of fascinating interpretation. What's more, though Vendler draws on the work of many commentators who went before her, in the end it is Shakespeare's own meaning, and not the interpretation of modern critics, that she reads for. A nice bonus is the CD inside the back cover of the book, which contains the author's reading of 65 sonnets.

Book Description

Helen Vendler, widely regarded as our most accomplished interpreter of poetry, here serves as an incomparable guide to some of the best-loved poems in the English language.

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 original and modernized texts--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.

Customer Reviews:

Bard's books barred by bonehead.......2007-03-30

The second sentence of Helen Vendler's reading of Sonnet 23 is hidden away inside the sneaky-pete parentheses of a cream-faced loon. Here then, released to a just and proper scrutiny, is what the A. Kingsley Porter University Professor at Harvard University set down so sheepishly:

"I represent the sonnet with the emended LOOKS in line 9, following Evans, though plausible arguments have been made for the Quarto's BOOKS."

Ha! Plausible arguments? Are you insane? There isn't even one argument here--BOOKS ever it was and BOOKS ever it shall be. The word BOOKS is the very stuff and current of Old Will's song to himself in this sublime sonnet. Otherwise his achingly gorgeous description of reading in the last line--"to heare wit eies"--loses its chief power to delight. To think of this poem as anything other than an English visionary's formal celebration of his own literary bequest to mankind is simply an obtuseness born of too many universities. LOOKS my eye! To read LOOKS reduces this timeless verse to the merely--and meagerly--personal. And who's this Evans anyway? Some soggy-breeked Welsh halfwit no doubt. What's he got then Helen that lures you so? Is it the elbow patches? His pipe perhaps? Get a hold of yourself woman, this is William Shakespeare we are playing with here! Which reminds me, isn't the spelling of the word "abondance" in the Quarto version of Sonnet 23 a gigantic satisfaction? That o in there just about batters my sausage. I might not have thought so up to this point, being something of a halfwit myself, but Elizabethan English can really be a sight for sore eyes. The five stars are all for Shakespeare.

A dramatic and accurate expression of the inner life . . ........2007-03-25

Vendler doesn't just help us understand the Sonnets--she also gets right down to the basics of poetry itself, and in doing so provides an answer to the question: What is a poem?

She constantly directs our focus to the words of the poems themselves, the delicate patterns they make up, the web and nexus of language and syntax that go together to build the verbal contraption that is a poem.

Shakespeare discovered a rich, complex system of expression, unprecedented in prior Renaissance lyric poetry, which accurately and passionately represented states of mind and emotions--or at least we can believe they do this.

The overlaying panels of quatrains of each sonnet interact with each other in dynamic ways and are capped off with a couplet--usually joined through a "couplet tie" of a word that is repeated and links each of the quatrains and which both echoes and expands all that has come before in the sonnet.

Of course, there are the old favorites, the most anthologized and studied of the sonnets, among them "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day" (18), "When in Disgrace with Fortune and Men's Eyes" (20), "When to the Sessions of Sweet Silent Thought," (30) and "Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds" (116). Most readers of Shakespeare are familiar with those, and they are well illuminated by Vendler's essays. But she is at her best commenting on some of the less well-known poems, "Two loves have I" (144) and the "Will" sonnets 135 and 136, for example.

We gain insight into the character of "the young man," the lover of the speaker of the sonnets, through her deft analysis. The dramatic situation among the speaker, the young man and the dark lady comes into view, with passion, sexual ambiguity and duplicitousness. The fun is that the reader still gets to imagine much of the story . . . it is not fully told. The reader participates in the creation. It requires active listening and a keen sense of (and an ear for) poetry to follow--but Vendler helps us develop this, and the rewards are great.

By following we understand something exciting about what poetry is or can be.

"The ethics of lyric writing lies in the accuracy of representation of the inner life, and in that alone" writes Vendler. The creation of that inner life, and the playing out of it in a series of dramatic expressions that are these 154 Sonnets results in a remarkable body of poetic work. Vendler's short essays on each Sonnet are not all of equally excellent quality, but on the whole they do justice to Shakespeare's creation, enliven the drama and bring the sequence to life.

A Tough Slog but Worth It (Maybe).......2006-06-03

Among the many good features of The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets are those mentioned by other reviewers: Each sonnet is printed in its original form on its own page and also in modern form. Each sonnet gets its own independent essay. Vendler's comments are illuminating on a majority of the sonnets. The careful reader will come away seeing things in the sonnets that they would not otherwise have seen. Her pointing to what she calls "KEY WORDS" and "couplet ties" at the end of each sonnet's discussion helps the reader to engage with the sonnets in a new way. I've put this book on the shelf with my other favorite Shakespeare secondary sources.

Nevertheless I have to wonder if the effort of working (and it is hard work) through Vendler's book is worth the agony. Some of the previous reviewers have pointed out some of the failings. The diagrams, of which there are many, were for me simply worthless. (See the review by Royal Diasticutis on this issue.) Also this is not a self-standing book. The reader who has not specialized in the sonnets needs another more basic text to use along side Vendler's. (She suggests several.) Vendler's editors should have insisted that she skip the diagrams and instead add more basic information. This would have made this book much more useful and manageable.

The main reason I found this book far less than pleasurable despite the beauty of Shakespeare's poetry is that Vendler is a very poor writer. I do not understand how someone who professes to love poetry and to devote her life to it can be such a tedious, stiff, and pretentious writer of prose. Vendler must secretly hate the English language. I quote a single passage more-or-less at random as an example (this is from her discussion of Sonnet 129): "The impersonal mode allows for the habitual incompatibility and the perpetual sequentiality of both models. The couplet ironizes both models, ultimately, putting both mutual incongruity and repetitive sequentiality in a larger cyclical totalization in which one is only the obverse of the other, both existing in a mutual temporal dependency, represented formally by the chiastic well knows and knows well." (p. 553) I realize this is out of context but trust me the context would not help relieve the ugliness of this "lit-crit" baloney. This is the style of her writing: "ironizes," "sequentiality," "totalization," and her favorite word used in one form or another on almost every page "chiastic." Vendler ostentatiously is given to using technical terms from philosophy and linguistics such as "speech act" or "deixis" and I question whether she is concerned to use them correctly or even understands their technical meaning. And on and on and on. Vendler could have accomplished all the good things and lost nothing if she had used regular English. I got sick of her overblown, pretentious, muddy, self-indulgent, phony technical writing (but I read every word of this darn book). I can only hope that the ghost of Shakespeare comes back to torment her soul for such abuse.

I wish I could distil all the brilliance and insight that Vendler brings to the sonnets and leave out all the useless verbiage and humbug. Reading and studying this book is like trying to pick out golden nuggets from a huge barrel of mud and gravel.

A must have for Shakespeare lovers.......2005-11-27

I have just finished a research project for my Masters class. The project was about the Philosophies found in Shakespeare's Sonnets. Vendler's book was an extremely important tool in helping me learn to understand the Sonnets. First, this book contains all 154 sonnets, with each sonnet appearing on its own page with the sonnet number appearing in the upper right hand corner. This makes finding each sonnet simple and easy - very important when typing research papers. Vendler's description and analysis that follows each sonnet is highly detailed and exact, containing diagrams, links between words and puns, meanings behind the quatrains and the couplets, and even linking the connections between the groups of sonnets (such as the "young patron" and the "dark lady" sonnets). I was very glad to have this book at my finger tips for my project - in fact, every quote I used from the sonnets came from this book. Helen Vendler's The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets is a fantastic book and something that will enhance anyone's desire to know more about Shakespeare's Sonnets. For anyone that has studied Shakespeare or wants to know more about the sonnets, I highly recommend this book.

More Than An Outline, Less Than A Draft, Not A Book.......2005-03-09

Vendler does some great readings of the sonnets, particularly toward the beginning; but this book gives the impression of being yet another volume of lecture notes handed to a graduate student by a renowned professor and entered hastily into a computer with little editing. Vendler makes disparaging remarks about "prose paraphrasis," apparently to justify her own failure to convert the tables, charts, and lists from her lecture notes into readable prose.

A hard core fan of structuralism might find this book illuminating, but I do not believe it is appropriate to pad a work of literary criticism with over a hundred diagrams that look like they went straight from the overhead projector to the printing press. THE ART OF SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS, is something between an outline and a rough draft but certainly not a finished book--as anyone with a lesser reputation than Vendler's would have been told by their publisher.

The book is valuable for Vendler's explanations of how the individual sonnets fit into the sequence and her unravelling of Shakespeare's elaborate conceits. I will be keeping THE ART OF SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS on my shelf as a reference book, but the excessive use of diagrams to illustrate what could easily have been said in words makes much of it unreadable.

The Complete Shakespeare Sonnets (Audio CD)

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A befitting tribute to The Bard of Avon...

The Complete Shakespeare Sonnets (Audio CD)
William Shakespeare
Manufacturer: Airplay Audio Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD

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Shakespeare's Sonnets

ASIN: 1885608403

Book Description

THE COMPLETE SHAKESPEARE SONNETS read by Patrick Stewart, Natasha Richardson, Ossie Davis, Al Pacino, Claire Bloom, Kathleen Turner, Alfred Molina, Lindsay Crouse, Ruby Dee, Brian Stokes Mitchell and more

"The Sonnets are as important a part of Shakespeare's lecacy as his Plays. They are filled with thoughts and emotions all of us can recognize: desire, disappointment, jealousy, love, and forgiveness. To speak his Sonnets, Shakespeare created a character, a Poet, who gives voice to the feelings and observations reflected in each poem. We thought it appropriate to gather together a group of actors who could bring this Poet to life. We have set out t read the Sonnets in Shakespeare's language, in such a manner that allows the relevancy and originality of each poem to shine through." From the Introduction to the Complete Shakespeare Sonnets, Kathleen Turner

Customer Reviews:

A befitting tribute to The Bard of Avon..........2005-12-27

The sonnet is one among the many forms of poetry. It is a difficult form of verse with a FIXED rhyme scheme. The other trivia about writing it is that the verse should be 14 lines long. 154 sonnets written by Shakespeare have been read/recorded in this collection. There are actually two cd's in the box - the first cd contains sonnets 1 through 75 and the second, sonnets 76 through 154. The accompanying book of sonnets is a plus - it saves our time spent in scurrying to locate the sonnet being read next, since all the sonnets are in one place, in the order that they are being read. The book also has two indexes of the sonnets: 1. Track number / First line of sonnet/ Artist and 2. First line of sonnet / Track number / Artist

Since the rhyming scheme is fixed (abab bcbd cdcd ee), listening to them all at a time can sometimes make it sound monotonous, but that issue has been fixed in this audio book, by varying the tone, voice, and reader. When it comes to reading The Bard's works on an audio CD, who can do it better than experienced and well known thespians and theatre personalities who have made a mark in their own style? Here is the list of personalities who have read the sonnets for us:
1. Gerry Bammon
2. Roberta Bella
3. Claire Bloom
4. Lindsay Crouse
5. Ossie Davis
6. Ruby Dee
7. Brian Dennehy
8. Denise Dumont
9. Jill Gascoin
10. Amy Irving
11. Anne Jackson
12. Jordan Lage
13. Brian Stokes Mitchell
14. Alfred Molina
15. Al Pacino
16. Natasha Richardson
17. Patric Stewart
18. Allyson Tucker
19. Kathleen Turner (who, along with Charline Spektor, is also the producer for this audio-collection)
20. Eli Wallach
21. Fritz Weaver

Some of the sonnets have been rendered by more than one person, and both of them have been published in this cd, since both of them are good to listen. There was no point in time while I listened to the CD that I felt bored. In fact, some of them have been rendered so well that I wanted to listen to them again, just for the rendition.

For those who are interested in Shakespeare, this is an important addition to their collection. Some of the sonnets therein are well known ("Let me not to the marriage of true minds/Admit impediments.../If this be error and upon me proved/I never writ, nor no man ever loved"), and there are so many others to be read for the first time. Some of them bring vivid imagery, even if they are unknown ("Thus in his cheek the map of days outworn"), whereas others have wonderful metaphors ("So are you to my thoughts as food to life,/or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground;"). Almost all of them are treasure houses of wisdom (remember, Shakespeare was 45 when they were published, and he had lived life then).

Now, coming to majors who have to read the sonnets for their academic purposes - it is well known that it helps if we can quote lines from the sonnets amidst our theory answers; to that end, listening to the cd before, after or while reading the sonnet in print helps memorizing the lesson easier - this is my experience.

Here is a fantastic audio-book that reminds me why I was so entranced by literature while I was studying. A good gift for literature oriented people to add to their collection.

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What has happened to basic grammar?
A Weak Protagonist Spoils a Good Mystery
"This house is stained with the blood of innocence."
Midsummer in Florence
The Sonnet Lover

The Sonnet Lover: A Novel
Carol Goodman
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0345479572
Release Date: 2007-06-12

Book Description

For how thy memory has lingered on–
In spite of cruelest winter’s drear and howl–
By inner mirror seen; I’ve dwelled upon,
I must confess, my treachery most foul.

Did Shakespeare pen a series of passionate sonnets, unknown to modern scholarship, ardently praising a mysterious dark-haired beauty? This tantalizing question is raised in a letter to literature professor Rose Asher. But the letter’s author, Rose’s star pupil, is not telling. A troubled, enigmatic young man, he plunged to his death in front of the college’s entire faculty, an apparent suicide. Determined to find the truth, Rose journeys from New York to Italy, back to the magnificent Tuscan villa where as an undergraduate she first fell in love.

La Civetta is a dreamlike place, resplendent with the heady scent of lemon trees and the sunset’s ocher wash across its bricks and cobbles. Once there Rose finds her first love still in residence. Torn between her mission and her rekindled feelings, Rose becomes enmeshed in a treacherous tangle of secrets and scandal. A folio containing what some believe to be one of Shakespeare’s lost sonnets has vanished, and literary immortality awaits whoever finds the manuscript–as do a vast Italian estate and a Hollywood movie deal. Uncertain whom she can trust and where she can turn, Rose races against time and unseen enemies in a bid to find the missing masterpiece.

Lush, lyrical, and enthralling, The Sonnet Lover vividly brings to life the Tuscan countryside and the fascinating world of the Renaissance poets. Unmatched in her ability to evoke atmosphere and intrigue, Carol Goodman delivers her most ambitious and satisfying work to date, a seductive novel that skillfully propels its reader headlong to the final suspenseful page.

Customer Reviews:

What has happened to basic grammar?.......2007-08-15

I chose this book from the "Browsing" section of the library with high hopes: I am a member of a Shakespeare Study Circle; I've spent time in Italy and am a free-lance writer. This looked like the perfect summer novel for me.

Recently I've noticed an increasing number of grammatical errors in published novels and wondered how that could happen. In this one,I made it to p. 55 and read: "It wasn't me who was dying..." How could a competent writer make such a basic grammatical error? How could a careful editor let it pass? How could I, as a reader, trust them?

I did finish the book, noting other errors along the way. The careless writing ruined this novel.

A Weak Protagonist Spoils a Good Mystery.......2007-08-05

I have read Carol Goodman's novel with some interest over the past six or so years; mainly, it must be admitted, because I worked with her brother when her first novel came out and I had the chance to meet her then. Still, I don't regret it because I probably wouldn't have read her novels otherwise and, basically, they have been good, if not outstanding. My time with them has not been wasted.

Still, her novels have often given me the feeling of retreading old ground. Her mysteries are intriguing enough but her range sometimes seems limited. Her protagonists are always young women in their 20's or 30's who are writers/artists/teachers. The setting is always New England, usually with some connection to Manhattan. And, in her first four novels, the image of water was ever-present, if unexplained.

When I started this novel, it appeared to be breaking new ground. Yes, the mystery, protagonist and setting were all there but the water had all but disappeared and Shakespeare had appeared. The historical mystery of who was the "Dark Lady" was set to be answered with the appearance of some sonnets by a long-dead woman from the confines of an Italian villa, where much of the novel takes place after its beginnings in Manhattan. As a Bardoloter and reader wanting the best for Ms. Goodman, I had high hopes. Perhaps that's why I was disappointed.

Granted, I was let down somewhat by the fact that, despite initial appearances, she really didn't stray to far from her comfort zone. She doesn't really seem to be able to get in the head of a character who isn't much like herself. But that doesn't necessarily have to be a big problem if the character reacts realistically within the mystery. In the past, that hasn't been a problem with Ms. Goodman's work but here it is. In particular, we have a woman with no real penchant for bravery being within shouting distance of two murders and hiding possible evidence and yet, she repeatedly puts herself in potentially dangerous situations without a thought. And throwaway lines along the lines of, "She didn't know why she was doing this..." don't make believable characterization.

It's too bad because there are many pleasures to be had in this book. Both the mysteries she investigates--Shakespeare's Dark Lady and the murderer on the loose--are handled well. Unfortunately, the plot seems to drive the characters here more than the other way around this time out which makes for a lesser experience than her past books.

"This house is stained with the blood of innocence.".......2007-07-19

Carol Goodman's "The Sonnet Lover" is a literary thriller about lost manuscripts that are valuable enough to serve as a motive for murder. Thirty-nine year old Professor Rose Asher teaches comparative literature at Hudson College in New York. Her handsome and brilliant young student, Robin Weiss, has made a film that was shot in La Civetta, a Tuscan estate worth nearly a billion dollars. Its eccentric and flamboyant owner, Cyril Graham, has promised to bequeath his property to Hudson College to become a center for the performing arts.

Rose has bittersweet memories of her own stay in La Civetta when, as a nineteen-year old student, she had a passionate affair with her married professor, Bruno Brunelli. The relationship ended abruptly, Rose went on to pursue her successful academic career (she is a specialist in the Renaissance sonnet), and she now has another man in her life, college president Mark Adams. Suddenly, Robin's promising life ends when he falls off a balcony to his death. Was it murder, suicide, or a tragic accident? To find out, Rose revisits La Civetta along with Mark Adams, Gene Silverman (the head of the film department), and Leo Balthasar, a Hollywood producer who is planning to making a feature based on Shakespeare's sonnets. Says Leo, "Picture 'Shakespeare in love,' only steamier."

The book's premise is that in the sixteenth century, Shakespeare may have traveled to Italy to be with his lover, a poet named Ginevra de Laura, and perhaps his mysterious "Dark Lady." Ginevra's poems were lost and the skeptical Professor Asher insists there is no proof that Shakespeare ever set foot in Italy. "The Sonnet Lover" capitalizes on the popularity of historical mysteries featuring priceless documents and long-buried secrets. Goodman's well-researched novel is filled with lovely poetry, an exotic Italian setting, and intriguing speculation about Shakespeare's life. Professor Asher plays amateur sleuth as she pursues clues that may help her find Ginevra's poems. In addition, Rose rekindles her romance with Brunelli; although he is still married, Bruno claims to be separated from his aggressive wife, Claudia. He is fiercely protective of his son, Orlando, a gloomy young man who knew Robin Weiss well and bore a grudge against him.

Although Goodman is an intelligent and literate writer, "The Sonnet Lover" is not entirely successful. As the book progresses, its pace slows down considerably and the dialogue becomes increasingly stilted; there is a great deal of tedious exposition and too little action. By the time Rose learns the identity of the murderer and the numerous story lines are at last unraveled, some readers will have lost interest in the heavy-handed plot machinations. Although Goodman deserves credit for an ambitious effort, "The Sonnet Lover" ultimately falls short because of its overly cluttered and poorly constructed plot and its shallow characterizations.

Midsummer in Florence.......2007-07-17

The Sonnet Lover is the latest in Carol Goodman's novels centering upon female teachers who become deeply embroiled in mysteries generated by the activities of their students. This one takes college Renaissance Literature professor Rose Asher to Florence, where she revisits the romantic but menacing villa where 20 years ago she fell hopelessly in love with one of her own professors, unfortunately married. Now it appears that her former lover's son may be a murderer, and Rose's own life is endangered by her attempt to find some hitherto undiscovered sonnets, perhaps written by Shakespeare's own inammorata. Beautifully written, Sonnet Lover invokes a Midsummer Night's Dream atmosphere in the grounds of the villa, but it is magic not innocent but imbued with evil intrigue. Though this ambience works very well, the plot is probably Goodman's weakest, slow and plodding,and while enjoyable, this book does not measure up to her previous works for that reason.

The Sonnet Lover.......2007-07-14

This is the first Carol Goodman book I have read but it certainly won't be the last! Her imagery transported me back to Italy where I lost my heart.I not only felt I was there but was on the quest with Rose. I did not want the book to end and it left me wanting to know more about Shakespeare's era. I have actually done research since. That is the mark of a great book to me. Thank-you, Carol Goodman and many many more to come, I hope!

Shakespeare's Sonnets: Critical Essays (Shakespeare Criticism, 20)

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Refreshing Viewpoints in an Old Debate

Shakespeare's Sonnets: Critical Essays (Shakespeare Criticism, 20)

Manufacturer: Garland Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0815338937

Book Description

Shakespeare's Sonnets: Critical Essays is the essential Sonnets anthology for our time. This important collection focuses exclusively on contemporary criticism of the Sonnets, reprinting three highly influential essays from the past decade and including sixteen original analyses by leading scholars in the field. The contributors' diverse approaches range from the new historicism to the new bibliography, from formalism to feminism, from reception theory to cultural materialism, and from biographical criticism to queer theory. In addition, James Schiffer's introduction offers a comprehensive survey of 400 years of criticism of these fascinating, enigmatic poems.

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Refreshing Viewpoints in an Old Debate.......2000-05-02

The debate surrounding Shakespeare's Sonnets has raged on for a long time, and much of the scholarship on them has remained nebulous, repetitive, and overworked. James Schiffer's volume, however, is refreshingly brilliant and provocative: the essays he includes address an array of topics that are often overlooked, while many of the arguments are simultaneously revisionist and visionary, challenging the conventional wisdom that has guided the criticism on the Sonnets for so long. And what's even better, the arguments are beautifully and meticulously presented, crafted by some of the foremost Shakespeareans of our time.

Seven Ages: An Anthology of Poetry With Music (Poetry)

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A superbly produced audiobook anthology of timeless poetry.

Seven Ages: An Anthology of Poetry With Music (Poetry)
Naxos Audiobooks
Manufacturer: Naxos Audiobooks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: 9626341890
Release Date: 1998-02-22

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A superbly produced audiobook anthology of timeless poetry........2000-04-04

Based on Lord David Owen's book Seven Ages: Poetry for a Lifetime, this Naxos audiobook edition of Seven Ages: An Anthology Of Poetry With Music features outstanding and memorable dramatic readings by forty British actors ranging from Michael Caine and Judi Dench to John Cleese and Glenda Jackson. The poetry is drawn from the works of William Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, Ted Hughes, Dylan Thomas, Oscar Wilde, Rudyard Kipling, W.B. Yeats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, A.E. Housman, Robert Burns, D.H. Lawrence, John Keats, Seamus Heaney, Wilfred Owen, Matthew Arnold, John Dunne, Walt Whitman, Rabindranath Tagge, William Blake, William Wordsworth, Ogden Nash, Christinia Rossetti, and many others. Total Running Time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.

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