| Abstract |
"For most people the phrase 'Shakespeare's Sonnets' refers to the 154 poems published in 1609 under the title Shakespeare's Sonnets: Never before Imprinted. These have since appeared in numerous editions in print and on-line, ranging from plain-text reproductions through illustrated gift-books to collections with varying amounts of editorial material. Shakespeare's Sonnets (1609) have been translated into most of the world's languages, anthologised, modernised, and set to music; they have inspired other works of art including plays, novels, other poetry, songs, ballets, and films; and they have been performed and recorded in a variety of media. But the sonnets that appeared first in 1609 represent only a limited proportion of Shakespeare's uses of sonnet form. Shakespeare includes sonnets in his plays at many points in his career to change, vary, and heighten the dramatic mood. ... This volume contains all the surviving sonnets of Shakespeare. It includes the 154 collected together and published in 1609 as Shakespeare's Sonnets; alternative versions of 2 of them, as well as 3 of uncertain authorship but attributed to him in the unauthorised collection published as The Passionate Pilgrim (1599); and 23 that he incorporated into the plays, making a total of 182 sonnets. For the first time in their history, we endeavor to arrange them, so far as current scholarship allows, in the order in which they were written."-- Provided by publisher. |
