Shakespeare’s Sonnets and Other Poems

One hundred and fifty-four sonnets sit at the centre of this volume, joined by the longer poems that are usually printed alongside them. The sonnet sequence works through desire, jealousy, ageing and the claim that verse outlasts the person it describes, addressed across the groupings editors have argued over for centuries. Read together with the narrative poems, the collection shows Shakespeare working in forms well away from the stage, where an argument has to be compressed into fourteen lines and turned in the last two. Gathering the poetry in one place makes it practical for coursework or for reading a few pages at a time. In this volume: • The complete sonnet sequence in its traditional numbered order • The longer poems normally printed with the sonnets • Recurring subjects of love, time, mortality and the endurance of writing • A convenient single volume for set texts and for general reading For students of English literature, poetry readers and anyone studying the sonnet form, available from Boipoka.