The Sonnets: The State of Play

by Hannah Crawforth (Editor), Elizabeth Scott-Baumann (Editor), Ann Thompson (Editor)

Shakespeare's Sonnets both generate and demonstrate many of today's most pressing debates about Shakespeare and poetry. They explore history and aesthetics, gender and society, time and memory, and continue to invite divergent responses from critics and poets. This freeze-frame volume showcases the range of current debate and ideas surrounding these still startling poems. Each chapter has been carefully selected for its originality and relevance to the needs of students, teachers, and researchers. Key themes and topics covered
Textual issues and editing the sonnets
Reception, interpretation and critical history of the sonnets
The place of the sonnets in teaching
Critical approaches and close reading
Memorialisation and monument-making
Contemporary poetry and the Sonnets
All the essays offer new perspectives and combine to give readers an up-to-date understanding of what is exciting and challenging about Shakespeare's Sonnets. The approach, based on an individual poetic form, reflects how the sonnets are most commonly studied and taught.

312 pages, Hardcover

Published June 1, 2017

Reviews

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

While all the articles in this book were interesting in themselves (some, indeed, fascinating), they did not seem to add up to anything particular. I had more idea about the particular scholars' bugbears than the sonnets as a whole.

Absolutely worth reading (Hannah Crawforth is always good value) but THE state of play? Not really.