or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
or
Amazon Prime Free Trial required. Sign up when you check out. Learn More
More Buying Choices
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Shakespeare's Sonnets, and A Lover's Complaint
 
 
Tell the Publisher!
I'd like to read this book on Kindle

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

Shakespeare's Sonnets, and A Lover's Complaint [Paperback]

William Shakespeare (Author), Stanley Wells (Editor)
2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)

Price: $20.50 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
Only 1 left in stock--order soon (more on the way).
Want it delivered Tuesday, January 31? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details

Formats

Amazon Price New from Used from
Hardcover $25.04  
Paperback $14.00  
Paperback, May 8, 2003 $20.50  
Mass Market Paperback --  
Unknown Binding --  

Book Description

May 8, 2003
The most famous collection of love poems in the English language, Shakespeare's Sonnets have spoken to generations of readers who have turned to them again and again when searching for supreme expressions of love. Covering a whole range of emotions from joy to anguish, these sonnets reveal the beauty, power, inventiveness, and originality of Shakespeare's verse.
The collection depicts in beautiful, poignant, and intriguing language the poet's celebration of his passionate friendship with a young man, his grief over a friend's seduction by his own mistress, his chagrin at the friend's relationship with a rival poet, and, in the final group of poems, his own humiliating infatuation with "a woman colored ill"--the Dark Lady who has tempted his "better angel" from him.
Lyrically beautiful and psychologically fascinating, the sonnets both appeal as individual poems, and as an intricately related sequence. This volume presents all the sonnets in a freshly edited text and includes a few little-known alternative versions.

Frequently Bought Together

Customers buy this book with More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor $15.65

Shakespeare's Sonnets, and A Lover's Complaint + More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor
  • This item: Shakespeare's Sonnets, and A Lover's Complaint

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

  • More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details



Editorial Reviews

Review

`Review from previous edition the most beautifully printed text available' James Fenton, The Times

About the Author


Stanley Wells is Chairman of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Professor of Shakespeare Studies, and Director of the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, 1988-97, now Emeritus Professor. He is one of the foremost Shakespeare scholars of his generation. He has edited The Complete Oxford Shakespeare, An Oxford Anthology of Shakespeare, and The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare, amongst others.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 208 pages
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (May 8, 2003)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0192804464
  • ISBN-13: 978-0192804464
  • Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.6 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,521,393 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Authors

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

 

Customer Reviews

1 Review
5 star:    (0)
4 star:    (0)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
2.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars NOT an edition doing justice to Shakespeare's Sonnets..., May 27, 2003
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Shakespeare's Sonnets, and A Lover's Complaint (Paperback)
I sought out this volume with high expectations: Shakespeare. Edited by the eminent scholar Stanley Wells. Published by Oxford University Press. Published 2003. Once again we understand why Hamlet urged, "believe none of us."

This is the same material released by Oxford with a copyright of 1985, 1986, and 1989. Therefore, the present review applies to all the following ISBNs: 0192804464, 0192820265, 0198129467. The issues differ only in cover. All have pages of newsprint quality paper, meaning that if you are really studying the poems and highlighting or annotating the works, then you'll have ink blurs from one page through to the next.

And with this edition you will NEED to make annotation - there is none provided. Even the inexpensive editions from Signet, Penguin, and Folger provide aids to understanding archaic words and obscure allusions and wordplay (which offers so much delight to the sonnets and reveals the intellectual power of their author).

There is evidence that Professor Wells *has* left his well-respected mark on editing the poems, since an appendix documents which substantive changes he made to the original 1609 printing. Unfortunately, the novice reader is not offered any of the professor's decades of scholarship regarding the ART and SIGNIFICANCE of these most personal of Shakespeare's writings (nor any of the debatable points that arise when one proclaims one knows better than the 1609 Quarto what the Bard "really meant".

RECOMMENDATIONS: For similar money, readers will reap much finer appreciation of Shakespeare from other volumes of Shakespeare's Sonnets (& other nondramatic poems):
William Burto's edition of 2002 (also from Oxford): 019281933X
G. B. Evans's edition of 1996 (from Cambridge): 0521294037
And ESPECIALLY:
Katherine Duncan-Jones' edition of 1997 (Arden Press): 1903436575.
These volumes also explore the fascinating (if convoluted) probable links between the Sonnets and "A Lover's Complaint," originally published with it in 1609.

RECOMMENDATIONS for ADVANCED STUDENTS: English majors will want to go further and acquire Stephen Booth's most extensive, annotated-on-steroids edition from Yale: 0300085060 (see my review there). Committed lovers of the Sonnets owe it to themselves to own and savor Helen Vendler's "Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets" (reviewed at ISBN: 0674637127 ).

A wholehearted exploration of the Sonnets requires sustained stretching of a mortal's intellect, but an explorer with such expansiveness will be rewarded with a lifetime of riches: intellectual, aethetic, and spiritual. Unfortunately, this present example of unannotated, uninspired presentation of them will launch a reader on an abortive mission. You and Shakespeare *deserve* one of the better editions.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Only search this product's reviews



Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
From fairest creatures we desire increase, Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
thy worth, thy beauty
New!
Concordance | Text Stats
Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Search Inside This Book:

Citations (learn more)

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
 

Your tags: Add your first tag
 

Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store

If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store. Learn more

Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
Search all Amazon discussions
   
Related forums


Listmania!


Create a Listmania! list

So You'd Like to...


Create a guide


Look for Similar Items by Category


Look for Similar Items by Subject