The Sonnets (The Pelican Shakespeare)

The book remains unquestionably the best poems that trancend all that is known about the heart's expression of love regardless of your universe and degrees of fidelity period

Since reviews for various editions of Shakespeare's sonnets are lumped together on Amazon, I'll begin by saying that I am reviewing Shakespeare's Sonnets (Folger Shakespeare Library) published on Aug.16, 2016, and selling today for $4.99, and I am reading it on my Kindle Keyboard. I am very, very pleased with this version! All the links work well, the font is clear and attractive, and the formatting is just fine.When you go to the Table of Contents, you will see that the edition begins with the following commentary: the Editor's Preface; Shakespeare's Sonnets; Reading Shakespeare's Language: The Sonnets; Shakespeare's Life; An Introduction to the Text.Then you will see the sonnets themselves: Text of the Poems With Commentary. Each sonnet can be accessed individually by an active link, and each has links throughout the text with annotations. I like being able to just click on a phrase or word as I am reading in order to access extremely helpful commentary.After the individual sonnets, you will see the following listed: Two Sonnets from The Passionate Pilgrim; Longer Notes; Textual Notes; Appendix of Intertextual Material; Shakespeare's Sonnets: A Modern Perspective by Lynne Magnusson; Further Reading; Index of Illustrations (there are many, and each has an active link which will take you to it); Index of First Lines.I looked at many versions on Amazon before making my selection. True, there are others which cost just one or two dollars, but they lack access to each individual sonnet and/or textual annotations. They don't have all the other interesting material included here. If you want to read the sonnets on your Kindle, you really can't do better than The Folger Shakespeare.

Shakespeare's collection of sonnets is so much a part of the western cultural heritage that reviewing it is kind of like taking coals to Newcastle, but it is worth a few words. First, however, a note about this edition: it is exactly what I wanted, with a few unobstructive footnotes at the bottom of each page, an index of first lines, and two critical introductions, one offering up historical context, the other more interpretative. They enhance your reading, they do not do it for you.Now, why you want to read this collection. Most of us come to the sonnets singly: random reading assignments, in mixed anthologies, or one is quoted provocatively some place. With few exceptions, each is a perfect example of what the sonnet form does and how form itself shapes meaning. But read straight through consecutively, they offer a close-to-the-bone narrative of Shakespeare's preoccupations. This is the source of all that speculation about his sexual preferences. We've all heard lots of opinions on the bard's relationship with the "Young Man" and the "Dark Lady" but there is nothing like getting it first hand, and I must say that my ideas changed after sorting through for myself. For one thing, love--platonic or carnal--is not the only thing on his mind. Immortality, beauty, truth and a few other problems get a work out. The most pleasant surprise is how truly readable and accessible it all is.

Poetry is not much my cup of tea, I gave this book a try because Shakespeare work is astonishing. His work makes our reality richer than the worlds imagined in previous and posterior mythology. I started the book thinking it at first just poems about love, but there is a story, with deep observations and intense feelings. They make you feel, without filters, love as if you yourself were feeling it. You can open a Shakespeare book not knowing what to expect but it ends being spectacular.About the AmazonClassics edition you cannot find better ones for books written in English and without drawings. They have the useful X-Ray, impeccable formatting, modern typography and clean of misspellings. Other advantage is that it has not studies by intellectuals, prefaces nor introductions, only a biography of few words at the end about the author. The book is as pure as if it had been written this morning; the only defect is the reader, as I have not enough knowledge of poetry to notice, beyond evident rhyme and alliteration, the poetic structure donned by Shakespeare.

Katherine Duncan-Jones in the Arden Shakespeare's Sonnets is closer to Stephen Booth's linguistic approach from Helen Vendler,s artistic analysis of the Sonnets. I think she made a mature choice because Old Will in his love lyrics is ambigous and misleading.His words are loaded with meanings and accordingly are open to more than one interpretation.Publishing the detailed notes and commentry on the same page looks more practical and helpful, not only for the students but also for the general reader.Nevertheless, Hank Wittemore's version of Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, recently published for the first time , emphasizes that the dedicatee of Shakespeare,s Sonnets is Henry Wriothesley, Third Earl of Southampton and not William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke as the Arden,s editor of the Sonnets suggests in her introduction. Since 400 years the dedicatee,s identity had been masked. A.L. Rowse in 1964 published his version of the Sonnets and held that Shakespeare dedicated his poems to his close friend and patron Earl of Southampton. Now Wriothesley proved what Rowse had cocluded in his literary and historical researching half a century ago.In the next edition of the Arden,s Sonnets I hope Katherine Duncan-Jones sheds more illuminating light on this issue which puzzled many Shakespearians for a very long time.Abdulsattar JawadDuke University