HILTON LANDRY Interpretations in Shakespeare's sonnets (Perspectives in criticism series-no.14) , Berkeley / Los Angeles: Cambridge University Press, 1963.

First Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good/Very Good. 8vo Dust jacket complete, unclipped in a clear protective sleeve. Clean bright boards and titling. No ownership inscription. 185 pages clean and tight. The purpose of this volume is to analyze some of the Sonnets of Shakespeare that offer difficulties or problems of interpretation which can be resolved by the use of the proper contexts. The author assumes that the Sonnets provide for each other the most significant contexts of interpretation. His assumption is itself based on the presupposition that the order of the Sonnets in the quarto of 1609 is essentially correct-a view which fairly objective evidence tends to support -and that this order reveals many important relationships among both successive and separated Sonnets. In short, a knowledge of the major relationships among the Sonnets is essential for the reader who wishes to arrive at the fullest understanding of them. The more we read the Sonnets, the more we are struck by the extent to which they exploit various kinds of ambiguity on different levels of meaning: the word or phrase, the line, the quatrain, the poem, the relationship between poems. The presence of ambiguity in the Sonnets may be attributed in part to the flexible state of our analytic language in Shakespeare's time, but its deliberate use must be attributed largely to Shakespeare's associative mind and the frequent ambiguity of his feelings. Mixed or ambiguous feelings are manifested in some of the most interesting Sonnets, and in fact among the finest Sonnets are those which present negative feelings, whether mixed or relatively pure. Although increasing attention is being paid to the integrity and subtlety of the individual Sonnet, there is still a tendency to deal with them in the mass, to write general essays and introductions which treat them as parts of a fictitious whole. A false order and homogeneity is imposed on the Sonnets by the nearly universal assumption that they fall into two series: one addressed to a Fair Youth (Sonnets 1126), followed by another concerned with a Dark Lady (Sonnets 127-154) . Whatever can ,.be said for this convenient grouping is outweighed by its critical disadvantages, especially to those who assume that some kind of narrative or story is present. There is no more narrative in Shakespeare's collection than in Petrarch's, and what is called the "story" results from speculation and reckless abstraction, from ignoring the poetry of the poems. Further, the myth of two series ignores the variety of the Sonnets, the nature of an Elizabethan sonnet "sequence," and the uncertainty of the sex of the person addressed in many of the Sonnets, as well as the integrity of the individual poem. Professor Landry has taken issue with other scholars in some aspects of this study, and has produced original and perhaps controversial interpretations of some of the more "difficult" Sonnets. (Book ref. 129841)  £40.00

The payment methods accepted by the seller, Charles Bossom , are shown in the right-hand column.

Click here to order

Back to search