Shakespeare's Sonnets and Poems: A Very Short Introduction

Very Short Introductions #534

by Jonathan F.S. Post

Not for nothing is William Shakespeare considered possibly the most famous writer in history; his works have had a lasting effect on culture, vocabularies, and art. His plays contain some of our most well-known lines (how often have you heard the phrase 'To be or not to be'?), yet whilst his
poems may often feel less familiar than his plays they have also seeped into our cultural history (who has not heard of ''Shall I compare thee to a summer's day'?).

In this Very Short Introduction Jonathan Post introduces all of Shakespeare's poetry: the Sonnets; the two great narrative poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece; A Lover's Complaint; and The Phoenix and Turtle. Describing Shakespeare's double identity as both poet and playwright, in
conjunction with several of his contemporaries, Post evaluates the reciprocal advantages as well as the different strategies and strains that came with writing for the stage and the page. Tackling the debates surrounding the disputed authorship of Shakespeare's poems, he also considers the printing
history of Shakespeare's canon, and the genres favoured by the bard. Exploring their reception, both with contemporary audiences and through the ages until today, Post explores the core themes of love and lust, and analyzes how the sonnets compare with other great love poetry of the English
Renaissance.

ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and
enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Genres: Shakespeare, Poetry, Nonfiction

160 pages, Paperback

Published December 1, 2017

Reviews

[Kyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are two general camps of Shakespeare scholars: those who see him as a poet who wrote plays for the money, and others who see him as a playwright writing the occasional poem to sharpen his dramatic language. Post’s analysis of the narrative, sonnet and other selected poems (no room for the epitaphs here) finds balance between the two main kinds of interpretations with a playful sense of anonymity in both subject and authorship. Hard to argue that Venus and Adonis or Rape of Lucrece would be by any other hand, what with the dedication, but the uncertainty of by whom and for whom increases with each numbered sonnet. Just like his views on love as a many splintered thing, it is harder to tell how impressed Anne Hathaway would have been to see so many scandalous thoughts appearing in print - perhaps she’s the lover in the Complaint? Anyhow, I can rest assured, away from the centuries-long warring camps, that his Phoenix and Turtle represents how Shakespeare feels about his whole literary career, just one thing after another.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some books in this series take an oblique approach to their subject; others focus on just one aspect of it; many read like a much larger book that has been hacked down indiscriminately to fit the word limit. Shakespeare's Sonnets and Poems: A Very Short Introduction does none of these. Post takes us through the narrative poems and sonnets in a clear and orderly manner, describing the circumstances of their composition, analysing their main features, and outlining some of the main critical approaches to them (alhough, for the most part, this takes a back seat to Post's own enthusiastic and enlightening readings and assessments). He goes beyond this only occasionally when he mentions later responses to the poems by other writers, but this is never distracting. The result feels like a book written to order by a writer who understood his brief perfectly: certainly one of the best Very Short Introductions that I have read.

[Hank Hoeft · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent short discussion of William Shakespeare's written (as opposed to staged) works: the poems Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, A Lover's Complaint, The Phoenix and Turtle, and his 154 sonnets. As a high school English teacher who has taught several of Shakespeare's plays (A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, and Macbeth) in my classroom, I appreciate the added texture this slim book gives to Shakespeare's life, work, and motivations, putting his purely literary work into context with the scripts written to be performed on stage, and into context with the single largest overriding theme in so many of Shakespeare's works: Love in all its kaleidoscopic facets, both positive and negative, ennobling and destructive, physical and metaphysical. In all the volumes I've read in the A Very Short Introduction series, this is one of my favorites.

[Bernie Gourley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Today, Shakespeare is known as a playwright (who performed every other occupation in the theatrical world,) and while it is true that some of his sonnets are quite well-known and anthologized, few read (or even know of) his narrative poems. That was not always the case, and there was a time when it seemed probable that Shakespeare would become as well know for “The Rape of Lucrece” as for any of his plays. There’s a reason for his poetic work that we can very much relate to today, and that’s that when the Plague was in town, the theaters were closed down. Of course, there is no ironclad distinction between these two career tracks – poet and playwright. All of Shakespeare’s plays contain verse, and a couple of the histories are written entirely in verse (i.e. King John and Richard II.) Of course, muddying the waters are doubts about what works attributed to Shakespeare were actually composed by him.

In this “A Very Short Introduction,” Post offers the reader insight into the historical and cultural context in which these poems exist, offering elaborations that will help the reader to better understand these poems. The book also helps one see the poems in the larger context of Shakespeare’s work and of literature, itself. Chapter one provides an overview of Shakespeare’s career as a poet and contrasts it to his work as a playwright.

Chapter two is about the narrative poem entitled “Venus and Adonis.” This poem shows us the lovelorn goddess, Venus, continually trying to woo Adonis who is, as they say, just not that into her. Post explores the linkage between Shakespeare’s poem and the source material (e.g. Ovid’s “Metamorphoses,”) comparing and contrasting earlier versions of this Greek myth with the Bard's telling. He also dives into the psychology a bit, asking us to consider who is the more sympathetic character. As in other chapters, Post highlights stanzas that he believes provide particular insight into the story.

Chapter three is about Shakespeare’s most well-known narrative poem, “The Rape of Lucrece.” This poem is about the defilement of a Roman noblewoman and the sad ending to which her tragedy plays out. Besides relating the poem to source material and to Shakespeare’s broader work, the author also shows how the story was portrayed in paintings, as well as discussing how pertinent parts of the poem relate to the story in Homer’s “Iliad” (the story of the war and besiegement of Troy by a coalition of Greek states.)

Chapters four and five both explore the sonnets. The first (Ch. 4) provides insight into the form of sonnet employed by Shakespeare and relates it to sonnets, generally. A section is devoted to breaking down one particular sonnet (116,) to deconstruct a typical example. Other sonnets are included in the text to emphasize particular points -- as opposed to offering a generic overview. Chapter five considers themes and points of emphasis that cut across the collection of 154 sonnets. Here we get an explanation of how the “young man” and “dark lady” poems are distinct, but can be seen as part of an interrelated whole. Still other sonnets are printed in full or in part to elucidate the author’s points.

The final chapter (Ch. 6) investigates two works that are widely (but not universally) attributed to Shakespeare that might be considered the Black Sheep of his poetic family. [There is, of course, a connection between these works being atypical of form and / or content and their authorship being challenged.] The first work is “A Lover’s Complaint,” which like “The Rape of Lucrece” tells the tale of a woman used and abandoned, but – in this case – not an aristocratic woman. Its authorship is less in doubt because it was published together with the sonnets while Shakespeare was still alive, and while the content is a bit different the poem is not wildly outside Shakespeare’s body of work. “The Phoenix and Turtle” is a short, highly lyrical, love story that uses lines with three and a half feet (catalectic trochaic tetrameter.) [A metering which appears in Shakespeare’s other work, but not nearly to the extent as pentameter.]

This book contains graphics that mostly consist of artistic takes on the events of the narrative poems along with a couple title page photos. Like the other books in this series, there is both a “references” section and a “recommended reading” section. This edition also has a brief timeline that puts Shakespeare’s career into broader context of Elizabethan literature, and also shows when the poems came out relative to Shakespeare’s plays.

I found this book to be compelling and educational. I had no idea that -- in Shakespeare’s time -- it seemed as likely that he would become well-known for his poetry as that he would for his plays. (Apparently, the plays weren’t collectively published until well after the Bard’s death.) It’s easy to lose informational value from Shakespeare’s work when one lacks a background in history and how language has morphed. Among these “A Very Short Introduction” guides from Oxford University Press, I have found volumes that greatly rounded out my readings of Shakespeare’s works. I’d highly recommend this book if you are planning to read Shakespeare’s poems.

[Mary L · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I didn't understand everything presented in Shakespeare's Sonnets and Poems, I now have context and elements to look for when I eventually read the rest of Shakespeare's works.