hb

I'm not going to review the actual sonnets. Others have done it better and at great length. Obviously repays reading and rereading but every time I find something new.

This edition is excellent. The poetry is presented clearly and cleanly and the notes don't overdo it as the Arden has a tendency to. Language and vocabulary are explained, contentious passages are discussed and additional meanings are covered, including, of course, the double entendres. ( )

There is a very definite reason that some of Shakespeare's sonnets are recognizable by the completion of the first line, whereas with others, you could hear the whole thing and not have any idea who wrote it (or what it was about). Some of the sonnets are very nice, but on the whole, I didn't care for them very much. The epic poems where more interesting to me (The Rape of Lucrece and Venus and Adonis). ( )

teeny book of poetry, seems to be affiliated to Allied newspapers, maybe a free gift, dated in pencil 1890 ( )