Companion to Shakespeare's Sonnets

Michael Schoenfeldt is Professor of English Literature at the University of Michigan and Director of the Program in Medieval and Early Modern Studies. He is the author of Bodies and Selves in Early Modern England: Physiology and Inwardness in Spenser, Shakespeare, Herbert, and Milton (1999), Prayer and Power: George Herbert and Renaissance Courtship (1991), and co-editor of Imagining Death in Spenser and Milton (2003).

"Of making many reference books about Shakespeare there is no end, and Blackwell, a leader in the field of reference books on literature and other topics, has produced a large and expensive Companion to Shakespeare's Sonnets" (Chronique) "This title provides a solid introduction to key concepts and ways of studying the work of an author who whose reputation is so great it is often difficult for readers new to the works to know where to begin.... The quality of all the essays is very high." (Reference Reviews, Issue 4 2008)"Michael Schoenfeldt's compilation of twenty-five critical essays takes into account the most important issues concerning Shakespeare's sonnets: historical, interpretive, biographical, and editorial ... Several familiar themes in Sonnet criticism get fresh readings here … it is obviously impossible to do justice here to all of the essays ... it is a valuable [guide] to the current state of criticism and scholarship." (Renaissance Quarterly)"This is generally an excellently structured collection of essays." (Notes and Queries)

• Notes on Contributors viiiAcknowledgments xiiIntroduction 1Part I Sonnet Form and Sonnet Sequence 131 The Value of the Sonnets 15Stephen Booth2 Formal Pleasure in the Sonnets 27Helen Vendler3 The Incomplete Narrative of Shakespeare’s Sonnets 45James Schiffer4 Revolution in Shake-speares Sonnets 57Margreta de Grazia Copyrighted MaterialPart II Shakespeare and His Predecessors 715 The Refusal to be Judged in Petrarch and Shakespeare 73Richard Strier6 “Dressing old words new”? Re-evaluating the “Delian Structure” 90Heather Dubrow7 Confounded by Winter: Speeding Time in Shakespeare’s Sonnets 104Dympna CallaghanPart III Editorial Theory and Biographical Inquiry: Editing the Sonnets 1198 Shake-speares Sonnets, Shakespeare’s Sonnets, and Shakespearean Biography 121Richard Dutton9 Mr. Who He? 137Stephen Orgel10 Editing the Sonnets 145Colin Burrow11 William Empson and the Sonnets 163Lars EnglePart IV The Sonnets in Manuscript and Print 18312 Shakespeare’s Sonnets and the Manuscript Circulation of Texts in Early Modern England 185Arthur F. Marotti13 The Sonnets and Book History 204Marcy L. NorthPart V Models of Desire in the Sonnets 22314 Shakespeare’s Love Objects 225Douglas Trevor15 Tender Distance: Latinity and Desire in Shakespeare’s Sonnets 242Bradin Cormack16 Fickle Glass 261Rayna Kalas17 “Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame”: Mapping the “Emotional Regime” of Shakespeare’s Sonnets 277Jyotsna G. SinghPart VI Ideas of Darkness in the Sonnets 29118 Rethinking Shakespeare’s Dark Lady 293Ilona Bell19 Flesh Colors and Shakespeare’s Sonnets 314Elizabeth D. HarveyPart VII Memory and Repetition in the Sonnets 32920 Voicing the Young Man: Memory, Forgetting, and Subjectivity in the Procreation Sonnets 331Garrett A. Sullivan, Jr.21 “Full character’d”: Competing Forms of Memory in Shakespeare’s Sonnets 343Amanda WatsonPart VIII The Sonnets in/and the Plays 36122 Halting Sonnets: Poetry and Theater in Much Ado About Nothing 363Patrick Cheney23 Personal Identity and Vicarious Experience in Shakespeare’s Sonnets 383William FleschPart IX The Sonnets and A Lover’s Complaint 403Margaret Healy25 The Enigma of A Lover’s Complaint 426Catherine BatesAppendix: The 1609 Text of Shakespeare’s Sonnets and A Lover’s Complaint 441Index 502