Shakespeare's Sonnets Explained: With Summaries, Notes, Background Information, and Texts of All the Sonnets

by Michael Cummings

This book summarizes and analyzes all 154 of Shakespeare's sonnets. It also defines difficult words in the sonnets, explains the rhyme scheme and meter, briefly traces the origin of the sonnet form, and provides background on the persons addressed in the sonnets. Finally, the guide comments on whether the sonnets reveal Shakespeare's sexual orientation.

180 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 18, 2015

Reviews

[Eloise · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm glad I read an annotated version of this!! My favourite sonnets were the sonnets I already knew (shall I compare thee to a summer's day, my mistress's eyes are nothing like the sun, etc.), and the rest were a very difficult to read and understand so difficult to truly appreciate as poetry. So I was grateful for the summaries after each sonnet!

I loved the overarching story though! I had no idea that the sonnets made up a sort of soap opera, and also hadn't realised that most of them are love poems to another man. The author of this version seems sure that it was platonic love because the speaker encourages 'the young man' to marry a woman and have children, but I see that as a perfectly normal thing to ask of your gay lover at a time when homosexuality was taboo!

The love at the end, towards the dark lady, is depicted as pure lust (even though she's apparently ugly inside and out 😅) and the love towards the young man is for everything about him, his intelligence, kindness, youth, etc. There is a lot of possessiveness, jealousy, and general lovesickness. The poet gets so worked up by the end that even a spa day doesn't calm him down!

[Marian · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book makes the Sonnets more accessible and easier to read by defining difficult and archaic vocabulary and summarising the meaning of each sonnet