'The annotation is consistently thoughtful and well judged, giving plenty of precise help with lexical and syntactical problems, and offering valua...
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reviews
Jan 30, 2012
Manny
rated it: 
Shakespeare's Sonnet XVIII (abridged)
You're hot.
But not as hot as this poem.
Shakespeare's Sonnet CXVI (abridged)
I'll love you even when you are sixty four
Or my name's not Heather Mills.
Shakespeare's Sonnet XCIV (abridged)
Stay cool man. Peace.
Like, flower power, y'know?
You're hot.
But not as hot as this poem.
Shakespeare's Sonnet CXVI (abridged)
I'll love you even when you are sixty four
Or my name's not Heather Mills.
Shakespeare's Sonnet XCIV (abridged)
Stay cool man. Peace.
Like, flower power, y'know?
12 comments
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(27 people liked it)
Jan 19, 2010
David
rated it:
SHAKESPEARE WANTS YOU TO BREED!!!!
The first 17 or so sonnets in the series left me taken aback. It's right there in the first line of Sonnet #1:
1. From fairest creatures we desire increase
That thereby beauty's Rose might never die
But as the riper should be time decease
His tender heir might bear his memory
There's this obsession with propagating the species. This concern about breeding dominates the first 17 sonnets in the series, something I More...
The first 17 or so sonnets in the series left me taken aback. It's right there in the first line of Sonnet #1:
1. From fairest creatures we desire increase
That thereby beauty's Rose might never die
But as the riper should be time decease
His tender heir might bear his memory
There's this obsession with propagating the species. This concern about breeding dominates the first 17 sonnets in the series, something I More...
6 comments
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(9 people liked it)
Oct 12, 2010
Abigail
rated it:
Shakespeare's Sonnets, those 154 beautifully-worded, nimbly-constructed poems, is not a work with which one is ever "done." This collection of gems is something to revisit from time to time, and cliched though it may be, it yields some new understanding at every reading.
I cannot say that I "know" these poems, though I have read each of them a number of times. Perhaps the two with which I am most familiar are #116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit More...
I cannot say that I "know" these poems, though I have read each of them a number of times. Perhaps the two with which I am most familiar are #116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit More...
5 comments
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(2 people liked it)
Aug 22, 2007
Frederick
rated it:
I announce first that I've only read about a third of Shakespeare's sonnets. But I do feel I may make a valid point. While the sonnets, with virtually no varying texts, are very pure compared to the plays, which exist in many editions, nevertheless, Shakespeare's personality is stamped on the plays, not the sonnets.
Okay, now that the scholars have stopped reading this review, let's tell the truth: As brilliant as the sonnets are, as carved in marble as they seem to be, if the plays didn't More...
Okay, now that the scholars have stopped reading this review, let's tell the truth: As brilliant as the sonnets are, as carved in marble as they seem to be, if the plays didn't More...
2 comments
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(1 person liked it)
Sep 30, 2007
Guy
rated it:
At some point - maybe I was in a hurry? - I starred this book but wrote nothing about it.
I would not presume for a moment to "review" the sonnets, but when I teach the sonnets, which I do often, I insist that students purchase this, the Alden, edition. The editor is Katherine Duncan-Jones, and her edition is invaluable.
Each sonnet is given a summary/synopsis, and there are line-by-line annotations and explications; occasionally Duncan-Jones offers one or more p More...
I would not presume for a moment to "review" the sonnets, but when I teach the sonnets, which I do often, I insist that students purchase this, the Alden, edition. The editor is Katherine Duncan-Jones, and her edition is invaluable.
Each sonnet is given a summary/synopsis, and there are line-by-line annotations and explications; occasionally Duncan-Jones offers one or more p More...
0 comments
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(2 people liked it)
Jun 14, 2011
Alex
rated it:
Two passions dwell in poet's heart
Two desperate obsessions are reflected through his art
Those are two characters from Shakespeare's poetry triangle:
The dark skinned lady and the man of fair skin
His charm is gentle and she's a striking beauty queen
Three lives, three loves in chains of jealousy are fatally entangled
Did two conspire secretly behind the poet's back
Betraying him two times, which caused his soul to wreck ?
Two desperate obsessions are reflected through his art
Those are two characters from Shakespeare's poetry triangle:
The dark skinned lady and the man of fair skin
His charm is gentle and she's a striking beauty queen
Three lives, three loves in chains of jealousy are fatally entangled
Did two conspire secretly behind the poet's back
Betraying him two times, which caused his soul to wreck ?
0 comments
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(1 person liked it)
Jun 20, 2011
Shaun
rated it:
I have always had a special fondness for the Sonnets. They are very complex, abstract, sexual, private, ripe with forbidden fruits and forbidden love, homosexual, love tirangles, oh my! No scholar really understands them - perhaps that adds to their appeal.
Quotes
When forty winters shall besiege thy brow, / And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field. 2
For thou art much too fair, / To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir. 6
Is it for fear to wet a More...
Jul 18, 2009
Erik
rated it: 
We had a lot of Shakespeare in high school, reading many of his plays, seeing them performed on stage or in film. We also had a lot of poetry, mostly classical stuff, ee cummings being about as modern or far out as the English Department dared go. That was fine by me. I've ever been thankful for being forced to read Pope, Keats, Shelley, Yeats, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Burns, Blake, Dickinson et cetera while I was young. We kids ourselves passed around the moderns...
While my favori More...
While my favori More...
3 comments
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(1 person liked it)
May 06, 2009
(See Trevor's review. I already have a Compete Shakespeare, but annotations are sweet. Actually, the in-text annotations done as footnotes can be really annoying, since I keep getting waylaid glancing down at them to see if there is something I'm missing, but after a lifetime of reading Shakespeare I'm comfortable with the lingo. So mostly they just yank me out of the flow of the language. Currently also a curse in my reading of Milton. But those introductions that provide historical backgroundMore...
Jan 19, 2010
Broodingferret
rated it:
Excellent work, though reading dozens of poems on the same topic gets tiresome after a while. Shakespeare's decision to write in 3 quatrains followed by a rhyming couplet instead of the traditional 8 line/6 line form gives his sonnets an appealing cadence, and his choice to completely do away with the Petrarchian convention of whining incessantly about unrequited love was refreshing.
0 comments
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(1 person liked it)
Jan 29, 2012
Nemesis
rated it:
Dovrei paragonarti ad un giorno d'estate?
Tu sei ben più raggiante e mite:
venti furiosi scuotono le tenere gemme di maggio
e il corso dell'estate ha vita troppo breve:
talvolta troppo cocente splende l'occhio del cielo
e spesso il suo volto d'oro si rabbuia
e ogni bello talvolta da beltà si stacca,
spoglio dal caso o dal mutevol corso di natura.
Ma la tua eterna estate non dovrà sfiorire
né perdere possesso del bello che tu hai;
né mor More...
Tu sei ben più raggiante e mite:
venti furiosi scuotono le tenere gemme di maggio
e il corso dell'estate ha vita troppo breve:
talvolta troppo cocente splende l'occhio del cielo
e spesso il suo volto d'oro si rabbuia
e ogni bello talvolta da beltà si stacca,
spoglio dal caso o dal mutevol corso di natura.
Ma la tua eterna estate non dovrà sfiorire
né perdere possesso del bello che tu hai;
né mor More...
Sep 06, 2009
Patrick
rated it:
Everyone should carry around a tattered paperback copy of the sonnets. You never know when they will be needed.
"Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.
Why lov’st thou that which thou receiv’st not gladly,
Or else receiv’st with pleasure thine annoy?
If the true concord of well-tunèd sounds,
By unions married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness t More...
"Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.
Why lov’st thou that which thou receiv’st not gladly,
Or else receiv’st with pleasure thine annoy?
If the true concord of well-tunèd sounds,
By unions married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness t More...
Feb 17, 2011
Nadine
rated it:
I enjoyed reading these for the most part. I mean, I wouldn't go out of my way to read them again, but I'm still giving it 4 stars because who am I to give Shakespeare less than 4 stars? A lot of them were on the theme of "I love you so much, so I am going to write this poem so that you will live on in eternity", which they did, but we don't actually know who he is writing about so he's kind of a liar. My favourites were 71, 91, 105, and 109. I made that list so I knew which ones to
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(1 person liked it)
Mar 23, 2011
Angelo
rated it:
Title in portuguese: Imagem da Poesia Europeia – II
(org_David Mourão-Ferreira),
in Colóquio Letras, 168/169 – Jul/Dez' 2004,
Fundação C. Gulbenkian ed.
Lisboa
- Soneto CXVI, William Shakespeare, (trad_ Luís Cardim) p. 174
- a book purchased by me.
- a vital and intense reading.
- an intense love sonet to Lady Dark.
notes.
William Shakespeare’s 154 Sonets (1609);
between 1590 – 1598;
The Complete Works of More...
(org_David Mourão-Ferreira),
in Colóquio Letras, 168/169 – Jul/Dez' 2004,
Fundação C. Gulbenkian ed.
Lisboa
- Soneto CXVI, William Shakespeare, (trad_ Luís Cardim) p. 174
- a book purchased by me.
- a vital and intense reading.
- an intense love sonet to Lady Dark.
notes.
William Shakespeare’s 154 Sonets (1609);
between 1590 – 1598;
The Complete Works of More...
May 16, 2011
Cherise
rated it: 
Poetry as only Shakespeare is capable . I am partial to sonnets so I may have a biased opinion of how great the book was . I often wish everyone spoke this way , it's so eloquent and it helps our speech . Poetry reminds me of the scriptures that warn against negative , rude , harsh , crude or violent speech . Shakespeare seems to heed this and breathes fresh beautiful words into the air for all to inhale and enjoy . His poetry was not a let down , I was concerned that after hearing such lovely d
More...
Mar 23, 2010
Bruce
rated it:
Reading these 154 sonnets again and again over the years, I find them ever new, ever fresh, ever delightful. Like most poetry, they are best read aloud, but even read silently, they are magnificent. Shakespeare herein demonstrates a wonderful fecundity of poetic conceits, almost all on the theme of Love. One moves from one sonnet to another, exclaiming, “Oh, this is the best!”, only to find fresh delight in the next. Countless lines are recognizable even for the reader encountering them for
More...
Sep 04, 2011
Jurgita
rated it:
Only a memory associated with this book is the second last year to spend in Lithuanian literature classes. We had to work hard at many of these sonnets, which were forced to learn by heart. At that time it seemed pointless and just a waste of time, but when i joined in language and literature at the University, everything has changed. You can say a few lines of sonnet style mustache touched as yet immature young students and has moved the souls of our lives. There are many books in our world, bu
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Jul 24, 2011
David
rated it:
Though probably everyone is passingly familiar with the very famous Sonnet 18 ("Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"), it takes little time and there are abundant commentaries for all 154 sonnets. It's worth everyone's time who admires the English language to read these. Admittedly, a lot of them aren't very interesting. Those wiser than I will say that a lot of them aren't even very good. However, there are many gems, with not only liquid prose but a great amount of innuendo,
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Feb 03, 2011
Susan
rated it:
One of the fascinations of these poems is that we *seem* to hear Shakespeare in the first person. And despite the acts of early editors who changed the sex of the person addressed in the first 126 of the 154 sonnets, he's clearly male. The remaining poems are the "dark lady" poems. Ironically, so many of the 126 poems say the subject will live on in the poems, but there is no agreement who he was, so he *lives on* anonymously. It's also not clear the sonnets were written as one (or t
More...
Feb 12, 2010
Selia
rated it:
CXV
Those lines that I before have writ do lie,
Even those that said I could not love you dearer:
Yet then my judgment knew no reason why
My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer.
But reckoning Time, whose million'd accidents
Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,
Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents,
Divert strong minds to the course of altering things;
Alas! why, fearing of Time's tyranny,
Might I not then sa More...
Those lines that I before have writ do lie,
Even those that said I could not love you dearer:
Yet then my judgment knew no reason why
My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer.
But reckoning Time, whose million'd accidents
Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,
Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents,
Divert strong minds to the course of altering things;
Alas! why, fearing of Time's tyranny,
Might I not then sa More...
Jul 12, 2011
Jessica
rated it:
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O, no, it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark.
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be takern.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeps
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief h More...
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O, no, it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark.
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be takern.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeps
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief h More...
Jan 19, 2010
Analu
rated it:
Sonnet 40 Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all
Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all;
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call;
All mine was thine before thou hadst this more.
Then if for my love thou my love receivest,
I cannot blame thee for my love thou usest;
But yet be blamed, if thou thyself deceivest
By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.
I do forgive thy robber More...
Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all;
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call;
All mine was thine before thou hadst this more.
Then if for my love thou my love receivest,
I cannot blame thee for my love thou usest;
But yet be blamed, if thou thyself deceivest
By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.
I do forgive thy robber More...
Oct 29, 2010
Toby
rated it:
Just finished reading these again. I am quite a fan of his sonnets, and the English sonnet is perhaps my favorite form of poetry, after the epic. I think that his poems are very poignant, and that his couplets are very clever. There is, of course, much mystery about whom he is speaking in these verses. Many have tried to read a great amount of biography into these lines, but that is a reading I try to avoid. I am thinking of writing a research paper on either the sonnets or some of Shakespeare's
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Feb 23, 2010
Steve
rated it:
Pure pleasure. Should be mandatory reading for all people in the English-speaking world. Though not all of these poems are perfect, a lot of them are.
As far as the autobiography of it...I don't really care. I'll admit I'm not enthusiastic about my hero's bisexuality, but I suppose I can separate business from pleasure. Also, the speaker of these poems (whether or not it be Shakespeare) is clearly neither a Catholic nor a Protestant (usually the debate over his religion). He clearly More...
As far as the autobiography of it...I don't really care. I'll admit I'm not enthusiastic about my hero's bisexuality, but I suppose I can separate business from pleasure. Also, the speaker of these poems (whether or not it be Shakespeare) is clearly neither a Catholic nor a Protestant (usually the debate over his religion). He clearly More...
Jun 16, 2011
همانند امواج که به شنزار ساحل راه میجویند
دقایق عمر ما نیز به سوی فرجام خویش میش تابند
دقیقه ها به یکدیگر جای میسپارند
و در کشاکشی پیاپی
از هم پیشی میجویند
ولادت که روزگاری از گوهر نور بود
به سوی بلوغ میخزد
و انگاه که تاج بر سرش نهادند
خسوف های کژخیم شکوهش را به ستیز بر میخیزند
زمان که بخشنده بود
موهبتهای خویش را تباه میسازد
آری زمان
فره جوتنی را می پژمرد
بر ابروان زیبا شیارهای موازی می افکند
و گوهرهای نادر طبیعت را در کام میک More...
دقایق عمر ما نیز به سوی فرجام خویش میش تابند
دقیقه ها به یکدیگر جای میسپارند
و در کشاکشی پیاپی
از هم پیشی میجویند
ولادت که روزگاری از گوهر نور بود
به سوی بلوغ میخزد
و انگاه که تاج بر سرش نهادند
خسوف های کژخیم شکوهش را به ستیز بر میخیزند
زمان که بخشنده بود
موهبتهای خویش را تباه میسازد
آری زمان
فره جوتنی را می پژمرد
بر ابروان زیبا شیارهای موازی می افکند
و گوهرهای نادر طبیعت را در کام میک More...
Jan 20, 2010
Nicole
rated it:
Before the literary police bust through my door for giving Shakespeare anything less than six stars, here's the breakdown:
Will is the man. But somewhere around sonnet 13 or so, I realized that I'm really more of a play girl than a sonnet girl. I want more momentum in the storyline, more character development, more simultaneously insightful and raunchy humor (where's my fool?), more of the convoluted awesomeness that Shakespeare does so well. There are some undeniable gems in here (#135 com More...
Will is the man. But somewhere around sonnet 13 or so, I realized that I'm really more of a play girl than a sonnet girl. I want more momentum in the storyline, more character development, more simultaneously insightful and raunchy humor (where's my fool?), more of the convoluted awesomeness that Shakespeare does so well. There are some undeniable gems in here (#135 com More...
Jan 19, 2010
Steven
rated it:
In the Editors' Preface, Barbara Mowat and Paul Werstine note (Page ix): "This edition. . . reflects these current ways of thinking about Shakespeare." Their Introduction on "Shakespeare's Sonnets" provides nicely constructed context for the poems themselves. Mowat and Werstine say (Page xiii): "Few collections of poems--indeed, few literary works in general--intrigue, challenge, tantalize, and reward as do Shakespeare's Sonnets."
But it is the poems themselve More...
But it is the poems themselve More...
May 05, 2009
Trevor
rated it:
I’ve been wondering for a while how to approach this review. I had thought that it might be interesting to do a close reading of a single sonnet and leave it at that. What I’ve decided is to write a quick review on this edition of The Sonnets, mostly chatting about the stuff this book gives to help a reader read them, and then, over the next weeks and months, add ‘comments’ which will be reviews of some of my ‘favourite’ sonnets. I’m quite looking forward to doing this – so we’ll have to see
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16 comments
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(6 people liked it)
Oct 06, 2011
Wayne
rated it:
I've been dipping into these for the last several years - easy when you keep a copy by the bed, a tiny volume, pale blue with gold lettering, I bought at Shakespeare's house in Stratford...well, where else does one go to purchase one's Shakespeare???
Also, I have handy a book of Monarch Notes - A Critical Guide to Appreciation of Meaning, Form and Style ( the wee book of sonnets lives inside it at the exact sonnet next to be read!) because there are bits I just DON'T understand, and b More...
Also, I have handy a book of Monarch Notes - A Critical Guide to Appreciation of Meaning, Form and Style ( the wee book of sonnets lives inside it at the exact sonnet next to be read!) because there are bits I just DON'T understand, and b More...
Apr 01, 2008
Lindsay
rated it:
I love LOVE Shakespeare's sonnets. my favorites are 116:
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bend More...
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bend More...
