The Sonnets (Bloom's Shakespeare Through the Ages)

405 Pages·2008·1.65 MB·English

by  Harold Bloom

Bloom’s Shakespeare Through the Ages
Antony and Cleopatra
As You Like It
Hamlet
Henry IV (Part I)
Julius Caesar
King Lear
Macbeth
The Merchant of Venice
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Othello
Romeo and Juliet
The Sonnets
The Taming of the Shrew
The Tempest
Twelfth Night

Bloom’s Shakespeare Through the Ages
T H e SONNeTS
Edited and with an introduction by
Harold Bloom
Sterling Professor of the Humanities
Yale University
Volume Editor
Brett Foster
Bloom’s Shakespeare Through the Ages: The Sonnets
Copyright © 2008 by Infobase Publishing
Introduction © 2008 by Harold Bloom
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The sonnets / edited and with an introduction by Harold Bloom ; volume editor :
Brett Foster.
p. cm. — (Bloom’s Shakespeare through the ages)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7910-9597-3 (alk. paper)
1. Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616. Sonnets. 2. Sonnets, english—History and
criticism. I. Bloom, Harold. II. Foster, Brett.
PR2848.S64 2008
821’.3—dc22 2008012830
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C
ontents
q
Series Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .ix
Introduction by Harold Bloom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xi
Biography of William Shakespeare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Summary of The Sonnets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
List of Personas in The Sonnets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15
The Speaker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
The Young Man . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
The Dark Lady . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
The Rival Poet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Three Key Poems from The Sonnets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29
Sonnet 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Sonnet 64 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Sonnet 116 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
CriTiCiSm Through The AgeS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41
t
The Sonnets in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries . . . . . . . . . . . . .43
1598—Francis Meres. From Palladis Tamia, or Wit’s Treasury . . . . . . . 48
1599—William Shakespeare. Versions of sonnets 138 and
144 from William Jaggard’s anthology The Passionate Pilgrim . . . . . . . 48
1609—Thomas Thorpe. Dedication from Shake-speares Sonnets . . . . . . 49
1640—John Benson. “epistle to the Reader,” from Poems:
Written by Wil . Shake-speare . Gent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
vi Contents
t
The Sonnets in the Eighteenth Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51
1710—Charles Gildon. From “An essay on the Rise and
Progress of the Stage in Greece, Rome, and england” and
“Remarks on the Poems of Shakespear,” from Poems . The Works
of Mr . William Shakespear, vol. 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
1711—Bernard Lintott. From “Advertisement,” from
A Collection of Poems . . . by Mr . William Shakespeare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
1790—edmund Malone. From “Preface” to The Plays
and Poems of William Shakespeare in Ten Volumes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
1793—George Steevens. From “Advertisement,” from The Plays
of William Shakespeare in Fifteen Volumes . . . , 4th edition . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
t
The Sonnets in the Nineteenth Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61
1803—Samuel Taylor Coleridge. From Marginalia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .68
1817—John Keats. From Letters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69
1821—James Boswell. “Preliminary Remarks,” from
The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare, vol. 20 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .70
1827—William Wordsworth. “Scorn not the Sonnet” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71
1833—Samuel Taylor Coleridge. From Table Talk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .72
1842—Henry Hallam. From Introduction to the Literature
of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries . . . . . . . .73
1872—edward Dowden. From Shakspere: A Critical Study
of His Mind and Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .76
1876—Robert Browning. “House” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .82
1879—Algernon Charles Swinburne. From A Study
of Shakespeare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .84
1879—Sidney Lanier. From Shakspere and His Forerunners . . . . . . . . . . . .86
1889—Oscar Wilde. “The Portrait of Mr. W. H.,”
from Blackwood’s Magazine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .90
1899—Samuel Butler. From Shakespeare’s
Sonnets Reconsidered . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .114
t
The Sonnets in the Twentieth Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .121
1909—Sir Sidney Lee. “Ovid and Shakespeare’s Sonnets,”
from Elizabethan and Other Essays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .129
Contents vii
1910—George Bernard Shaw. From “Preface” to The Dark
Lady of the Sonnets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .147
1926—Robert Graves and Laura Riding. “A Study
in Original Punctuation and Spelling,” from A Survey
of Modernist Poetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
1935—William empson. “They That Have Power,”
from Some Versions of Pastoral . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .169
1953—G. K. Hunter. “The Dramatic Technique
of Shakespeare’s Sonnets,” from Essays in Criticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .186
1964—W. G. Ingram and Theodore Redpath. “A Note
on the Dedication,” from Shakespeare’s Sonnets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .197
1983—Anne Ferry. From “Shakespeare and Sidney,”
from The “Inward” Language: Sonnets of Wyatt, Sidney,
Shakespeare, Donne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .200
1984—Joel Fineman. “Shakespeare’s ‘Perjur’d eye,’ ”
from Representations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .203
1986—Thomas M. Greene. “Anti-Hermeneutics: The Case
of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 129,” from The Vulnerable Text:
Essays on Renaissance Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .231
1991—Bruce R. Smith. “The Secret Sharer,”
from Homosexual Desire in Shakespeare’s England:
A Cultural Poetics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .245
1994—Margreta de Grazia. “The Scandal of Shakespeare’s
Sonnets,” from Shakespeare Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .262
1997—Helen Vendler. From “Introduction” to The Art
of Shakespeare’s Sonnets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .281
1998—Jonathan Bate. “Shakespeare’s Autobiographical
Poems?” from The Genius of Shakespeare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .301
t
The Sonnets in the Twenty-first Century: A Brief Overview . . . . . . .327
2004—Patrick Cheney. “ ‘O, let my books be . . . dumb
presagers’: poetry and theatre in the Sonnets,”
from Shakespeare, National Poet-Playwright . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .330
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .361
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .377
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .379

s i
eries ntroduCtion
q
Shakespeare Through the Ages presents not the most current of Shakespeare
criticism, but the best of Shakespeare criticism, from the seventeenth century
to today. In the process, the volumes also chart the flow over time of critical
discussion of particular works. Other useful and fascinating collections of his-
torical Shakespearean criticism exist, but no collection that we know of contains
such a range of commentary on each of Shakespeare’s greatest works and at the
same time emphasizes the greatest critics in our literary tradition: from John
Dryden in the seventeenth century, to Samuel Johnson in the eighteenth cen-
tury, to William Hazlitt and Samuel Coleridge in the nineteenth century, to
A.C. Bradley and William empson in the twentieth century, to the most per-
ceptive critics of our own day. This canon of Shakespearean criticism empha-
sizes aesthetic rather than political or social analysis.
Some of the pieces included here are full-length essays; others are excerpts
designed to present a key point. Much (but not all) of the earliest criticism
consists only of brief mentions of specific works. In addition to the classics of
criticism, some pieces of mainly historical importance have been included, often
to provide background for important reactions from future critics.
These volumes are intended for students, particularly those just beginning
their explorations of Shakespeare. We have therefore also included basic
materials designed to provide a solid grounding in each work: a biography of
Shakespeare, a synopsis, a list of characters, and an explication of key passages.
In addition, each selection of the criticism of a particular century begins with an
introductory essay discussing the general nature of that century’s commentary
and the particular issues and controversies addressed by critics presented in the
volume.
Shakespeare was “not of an age, but for all time,” but much Shakespeare
criticism is decidedly for its own age, of lasting importance only to the scholar
who wrote it. Students today read the criticism most readily available to them,
which means essays printed in recent books and journals, especially those journals
made available on the Internet. Older criticism is too often buried in out-of-
print books on forgotten shelves of libraries or in defunct periodicals. Therefore,
ix