The afterlife of Shakespeare's sonnets /

Why did no one read Sonnet 18 for over one hundred years? What traumatic memories did Sonnet 111 conjure up for Charles Dickens? Which Sonnet did Wilfred Owen find particularly offensive on the World War I battlefront? What kind of love does Sonnet 116 celebrate and why? Filling a surprising gap in...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Kingsley-Smith, Jane, 1973- (Author)
Format: Book
Language:English
Published: Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2019.
Subjects:
Description
Summary:Why did no one read Sonnet 18 for over one hundred years? What traumatic memories did Sonnet 111 conjure up for Charles Dickens? Which Sonnet did Wilfred Owen find particularly offensive on the World War I battlefront? What kind of love does Sonnet 116 celebrate and why? Filling a surprising gap in Shakespeare studies, this book offers a challenging new reception history of the Sonnets and explores their belated entry into the Shakespeare canon. Jane Kingsley-Smith reveals the fascinating cultural history of individual Sonnets, identifying those which were particularly influential and exploring why they rose to prominence. This is a highly original study which argues that we should redirect our attention away from the story that the Sonnets tell as a sequence, to the fascinating afterlife of individual Shakespeare Sonnets.
Physical Description:ix, 286 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.
Bibliography:Includes bibliographical references (pages 251-278) and index.
ISBN:9781107170650
1107170656