Table Of ContentOxford Shakespeare Topics
Shakespeare’s Sonnets
oxford shakespeare topics
Publishedandforthcomingtitlesinclude:
LawrenceDanson,Shakespeare’sDramaticGenres
PaulEdmondsonandStanleyWells,Shakespeare’sSonnets
GabrielEgan,ShakespeareandMarx
AndrewGurrandMarikoIchikawa,StaginginShakespeare’sTheatres
PeterHolland,ShakespeareandFilm
JillL.Levenson,ShakespeareandTwentieth-CenturyDrama
AniaLoomba,ShakespeareandRace
RussMcDonald,ShakespeareandtheArtsofLanguage
StevenMarx,ShakespeareandtheBible
RobertS.Miola,Shakespeare’sReading
PhyllisRackin,ShakespeareandWomen
BruceR.Smith,ShakespeareandMasculinity
ZdeneˇkStr˘´ıbrny´,ShakespeareandEasternEurope
MichaelTaylor,ShakespeareCriticismintheTwentiethCentury
StanleyWells,ed.,ShakespeareintheTheatre:AnAnthologyofCriticism
MartinWiggins,ShakespeareandtheDramaofhisTime
Oxford Shakespeare Topics
generaleditors:peterhollandandstanleywells
Shakespeare’s
Sonnets
PAUL EDMONDSON AND STANLEY WELLS
1
3
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TO. OUR. FRIENDS. OF.
THE. SHAKESPEARE.BIRTHPLACE.TRUST.
AND.
THE. SHAKESPEARE.INSTITUTE.
ALL. HAPPINESS.
AND. THAT. ETERNITY.
PROMISED.
BY.
OUR. EVER-LIVING.POET.
WISH.
THE. WELL-WISHING.
ADVENTURERS.IN.SETTING.
FORTH. THESE.ENSUING. CHAPTERS.
PME(cid:1)SWW
Acknowledgements
Weshouldliketorecordourgratitudeto:DrJamesBinns,forinfor-
mationrelatingtotheGreekAnthologyandtoPrudentius;Professor
Julia Briggs; Signor Lucca Carpaccio, for assistance with Italian
sources; Alec Cobbe; David Crane; Professor Katherine Duncan-
Jones,forthekindloanofanunpublishedpaperontheatricaladapta-
tions of the Sonnets and for information on Thomas Thorpe; Dr
LornaFlint,forassistancewithrhymeschemesinShakespeare’splays;
Rachel Gatiss; Professor Christa Jahnson; MacDonald P. Jackson;
Professor Russell Jackson; Dr Paul Prescott; Andrew Rawle, for the
loanofvideos;DrPeterJ.Smith;WilliamSutton;JudithWardman;
and the librarians of the Shakespeare Centre and the Shakespeare
Institute,Stratford-upon-Avon,formanycourtesies.ProfessorPeter
Holland,asjointGeneralEditoroftheseries,hasmademanyinvalu-
ablesuggestions.
Readers may welcome a note about the method of collaboration
undertakenbytheauthors.PaulEdmondsonsuggestedtheideaand,
afterpreliminarytalks,eachauthorindependentlydraftedaproposal.
ThesewerereWnedfollowingfurtherdiscussionbetweentheauthors
and in the light of comments received from Peter Holland (as joint
GeneralEditoroftheseries)andfromreadersappointedbythePress.
TheWnalproposalindicatedwhichoftheauthorswouldbeprimarily
responsible for which chapter, and in some cases that authorship of
single chapters would be shared. Aswriting proceeded, each author
scrutinized what the other had written, and revised his work in the
lightofsubsequentdiscussion.Eachauthorreadsuccessivedrafts,and
againrevisionswerediscussedandagreed.WebelievetheWnalworkto
betheresultofanequalandhappycollaborationinwhichneitherofus
feltanyneedtocompromisehisownopinionsinfavouroftheother’s.
Chapter2,‘TheHistoryandEmergenceoftheSonnetasaLiterary
Form’,drawsuponchapter2,‘TheOriginalityofShakespeare’sSon-
nets’, in Stanley Wells’s Looking for Sex in Shakespeare (Cambridge:
CambridgeUniversityPress,2004).
PME;SW
Contents
ListofIllustrations viii
Abbreviations ix
ANoteonTexts xi
Preface xiii
PartI
1. TheEarlyPublicationoftheSonnets 3
2. TheHistoryandEmergenceoftheSonnet
asaLiteraryForm 13
3. TheSonnetsinRelationtoShakespeare’sLife 22
4. TheFormofShakespeare’sSonnets 28
5. TheArtistryofShakespeare’sSonnets 47
6. ConcernsoftheSonnets 63
7. TheSonnetsasTheatre 82
8. ThePlaceof ‘ALover’sComplaint’ 105
PartII
9. TheLaterPublicationoftheSonnets 117
10. TheCriticalReputationoftheSonnets 131
11. TheSonnetsandLaterWriters 145
12. TheSonnetsinPerformance 166
Notes 177
FurtherReading 182
Index 187
List of Illustrations
1. AnengravingbyPeterReddickfortheFolioSociety’s
editionof1989 xii
2. EdwardAlleyn’snoterecordinghispurchaseofacopy
oftheFirstQuartoinJune1609 5
3. Thetitle-pageofthe1609Quarto 6
4. Thededicationofthe1609Quarto 8
5. Sonnet129asprintedinthe1609Quarto 10
6. Sonnet126asprintedinthe1609Quarto 29
7. Sonnet136asprintedinthe1609Quarto 44
8. Sonnet20asprintedinthe1609Quarto 73
9. AportraitoftheyoungHenryWriothesley,third
EarlofSouthampton,believedforcenturiesto
depictawoman,LadyNorton 76
10. Thefirstknownillustrationof ‘ALover’sComplaint’,
fromJohnBell’s1774multi-volumeeditionof
thecompleteworks. 106
11. AnengravingbySimonBrettfortheFolio
Society’seditionof1989 139
Reproductionisbykindpermissionofthefollowing:Figs.1and11,the
Folio Society; Fig. 2, Dulwich College; Figs. 3-8, the Bodleian
Library,Oxford;Fig.9,theBridgemanArtLibrary;Fig.10,Private
Collection.
Abbreviations
BarnWeld Richard BarnWeld, The Complete Poems, ed.
George Klawitter (Selinsgrove: Susquehanna
UniversityPress,1990)
Booth,Essay StephenBooth,AnEssayonShakespeare’sSonnets
(NewHaven:YaleUniversityPress,1969)
Booth,Sonnets Shakespeare’sSonnets,editedwithanalyticalcom-
mentary by Stephen Booth (New Haven: Yale
UniversityPress,1977)
Burrow The Complete Sonnets and Poems, ed. Colin
Burrow, The Oxford Shakespeare (Oxford:
OxfordUniversityPress,2002;repr.withcorrec-
tions,2003)
Duncan-Jones Shakespeare’s Sonnets, ed. Katherine Duncan-
Jones, The Arden Shakespeare, 3rd ser.
(London:ThomasNelson,1997)
Hammond, PaulHammond,FiguringSexbetweenMenfrom
FiguringSex Shakespeare to Rochester (Oxford: Clarendon
Press,2002)
Hammond,Love Paul Hammond, Love between Men in English
betweenMen Literature(Basingstoke:Macmillan,1996)
Kerrigan The Sonnets and ‘A Lover’s Complaint’, ed. John
Kerrigan, New Penguin Shakespeare (Har-
mondsworth:PenguinBooks,1986)
Lee ElizabethanSonnets,Arber’sEnglishGarner,ed.
with introd. by Sidney Lee, 2 vols. (London,
1904;repr.NewYork:CooperSquarePublishers
Inc.,1964)
Malone Edmond Malone, Supplement to the Edition of
Shakespeare’sPlayspublishedin1778(1780)
Rollins The Sonnets, ed. Hyder E. Rollins, New Vari-
orum Shakespeare, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Lip-
pincott,1944)
