Customer Reviews

Great Sonnets (Dover Thrift Editions)

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I needed a little reference with sonnet examples.
This fit the bill, and had some savory treats as well.
I am a bit time-greedy with my poetry reading, and a sonnet
is a fantastic way to get some of the best Shakespeare,
Shelley, Longfellow, Hardy, Frost, etc. distilled down
to a minute, even reading slowly.
It's great to flick open to a page
and see some masterful language on a time budget.
If you have little time, or haven't read poetry
for a while, this great little tome is fresh
entertainment. Read Shakespeare sonnets aloud
to the missus, and you'll both be entertained.
The sonnet bites back at the sound-bite!
No batteries needed, no compatibility problems,
no cell-tower fade on the train.
I love little books.. Try some today!

A fine collection of sonnets, including many if not most of the most familiar ones. Eight from Shakespeare, four from E. Browning, four from Frost, four from Hopkins, four from Longfellow. For me at least, a more appealing collection than another I recently purchased.

Bertie Wooster can sing the latest Broadway melody while he scrub brushes his back, but I prefer reading poetry aloud in my acoustically-correct, ceramic-tiled bath. And I've discovered the perfect book for it: Dover's Thrift Edition of Great Sonnets.

It is from this small volume that I've learned that the world is charged with the grandeur of God ("God's Grandeur," Hopkins), that lust in action is a waste of shame ("Th' Expense of Spirit in a Waste of Shame," Shakespeare), and that listening to my lover's breathing while pillowed upon her breast beats looking at that lone, cold, bright and steadfast star any old day ("Bright Star," Keats).

And that's not all. This thin volume of sonnets is chock-full of other such keen observations.

For example, how does Wordsworth ("Surprised by Joy") manage to convey so economically that fleeting feeling of joy accidentally experienced by a man mourning the death of a loved one, that is immediately followed by his feeling of guilt for having felt it, which makes us feel how quickly times passes?

How does Archibald MacLeish reduce a cataclysmic event as large as the end of the world into so few choice words that when the circus big top blows off you feel as if the top of your head has blown off with it? ("The End of the World")

How can someone say so much in so few lines and so few words? Fourteen lines to be exact, with five strong beats or stresses per line-no more and no less-and a very exacting rhyme scheme. I don't know. I'm usually given to such wordiness that it would take me a warehouse the size of a state university filled with three-ring binders to tell you, and I still couldn't begin to touch the truth of it. However, that poets can do it never ceases to astonish me.

What's more, should my dog-eared Dover thrift edition ever fall by accident into the tub, I can cheaply replace it.

This is yet another great value produced by Dover publication. For a small amount of money one receives ' treasures' that can help sustain one throughout one's lifetime. There are ' immortal poems' in this collection including many of the greatest sonnets ever written , sonnets by Shakespeare, Donne, Milton, Wordsworth, Keats, Hopkins, the greatest masters of the form.
I myself came to know many of these sonnets in popular editions by other publishers, editions which have commentary these 'Dover Thrifts' lack. But the poetry is here, and much of it is real food for the soul.
The collection raises the question why it is that so much great English poetry has been written in this particular form- a question I do not really have the answer to.

this isn't an exhaustive collection of sonnets, nor a serious study. it is simply what it is: a short collection of sonnets that can be purchased cheaply. there are many great sonnets not included and no contemporary sonnets. but it isn't meant to be anything more than what it is. and if you love the sonnet, it's a good collection.