The Art of Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Helen Vendler

• Publisher: Belknap Press
• Year: 1999
• Print ISBN: 9780674637122
• eBook ISBN: 9780674088603
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism in Poetry
• Index: Literature

"A great achievement, the work of an author with an almost devout passion for good poems."
—Frank Kermode, New Republic

"Criticism of the Sonnets, and by extension, critical accounts of poetry, will never be the same again."
—Tom Paulin, London Review of Books

The definitive guide to Shakespeare's Sonnets from the most accomplished critic of our time.

More than four centuries after its initial publication, William Shakespeare's Sonnets is still very much a living text. Despite all the regalia of its Elizabethan English, despite its baroque grammatical dislocations, Shakespeare's major work of lyric poetry remains an inexhaustible source of literary wonder.

In detailed commentaries on each of the 154 sonnets, Helen Vendler offers a lucid analysis of the verse stylings that we have come to call "Shakespearean." The supreme accomplishment of these fourteen-line poems, Vendler demonstrates, lies not in their often-conventional themes and images—love and death, roses and thorns, summer's heat and winter's cold—nor in some hidden, deeper meaning, but in the seemingly effortless virtuosity of their arrangements. Shakespeare's sly subversions, his boundless capacity for formal invention, and his uncanny ability to breathe life into even the most commonplace metaphors betray a poetic imagination that has never yet found its equal.

Presented alongside both the original and the modernized texts, Vendler's commentaries not only illuminate the sheer abundance of Shakespeare's rhetorical strategies and his dynamic use of the sonnet form; they also reveal the sharp satire and scandalous irreverence that he directs toward everything from traditional sexual mores to Petrarchan views of love. Above all, Vendler provides an unparalleled view of a poetic mind at work, both Shakespeare's and her own.

APPENDIX 1

KEY WORDS

7. LOOK [-S] [unLOOKed]

10. SELF

15. YOU (It could be argued that this word is not present in Q₁, but I suggest it is phonetically hiding in “HUge,” chosen precisely for its anticipation of YOU.)

20. WOMAN [WOMEN]

24. EYE [-S]

26. SHOW

30. WOE [-S] (the last is a pun: sor-WOES)

31. LOVE [-’S] [-RS] [-D]

32. LOVE [-R] [LOVING]

42. LOVE

43. DAY [-S]; SEE [unSEEing] [SIGHT]

46. EYE [-S] [-’S]; HEART

50. ON

51. SLOW [SLO]

52. BLESSÈD [BLEST] [PLACÈD]

53. If one is prepared to find it orthographically hiding, as well as phonetically present, it is ONE [ON]: milliONs (2), ONE (4), AdONis (5), ON (7), foisON (9), ONE (10), nONE (14), cONstant (14).

55. LIVE [outLIVE] [LIVING] [obLIVious]

56. BE [-ING] (Normally, a word as common as be is not sufficiently foregrounded by the poem to take on salience in the reader’s mind. In this sonnet, however, it is initially foregrounded by a spondaic rhythm—Sweet love, renew thy force, be it not said—and later by alliteration: blunter be, blest may be. It is also used as the rhyme-word in line 9.)

62. SELF (The Quarto prints self-love as one hyphenated word, but my self and self loving as two words. Following Evans, I retain the two-word my self only in line 13.)

64. HAVE (foregrounded because of pun on auxiliary and full use)

68. BEAUTY [-’S]

74. Here, more properly, a KEY PHRASE, for which the formula is “preposition-plus-thee”:

98. YOU [YOUTH] (Q₁; HUE (Q₂); YOU (Q₃, C)

99. STEAL [STOL’N]

100. TIME/MIGHT [TĪM/MĪT] (possible anagrammatic KEY WORD)

103. MORE/MAR (if the near-homophone is allowed)

105. ONE [alONE] [WONdrous]

106. PRAISE [-S] [exPRESS’d]

108. LOVE [-’S] [halLOWÈD]

115. SAY [SAID] [SAcred] (possible KEY WORD)

119. ILL (if one accepts its “hidden” forms)

127. BEAUTY

135. WILL

137. EYES

140. BE

144. ANGEL

146. FEED [-S] [FED] [FEEDing] [FADing]

148. EYE [-S] [-’S]; LOVE [-’S]

152. EYE [-S], I (Normally, I would not qualify as a foregrounded word, but the pun with eye brings it forward.)

153. FIRE [-D]

APPENDIX 2

DEFECTIVE KEY WORDS

23. LOVE (absent from the “speechless” Q₁)

29. STATE (missing in Q₂, which describes the state of others, not his own)

31. ALL (missing in Q₂, which concerns absence and removal, rather than presence)

36. LOVE [-S] (missing in Q₃)

47. EYE, HEART (missing in Q₃)

51. EXCUSE (missing in C, except conceptually as leave to go)

65. HOLD, STRONG [-ER] (missing in C, as representing the organic order)

67. LIVE [-S] [-ING] (missing in C)

69. EYE [-S] (missing in C)

72. LOVE (missing in Q₂)

76. NEW (missing in Q₂); STILL (missing in Q₁)

85. WORDS, THOUGHT [-S] (missing in Q₁₅ the quatrain representing the Muse’s tongue-tied still[ness] while listening to others’ comments)

87. GIFT [GIVES] [GAV’ST] (missing in...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Acknowledgments
• Contents
• Conventions of Reference
• Introduction
• The Sonnets
• Appendix 1: Key Words
• Appendix 2: Defective Key Words
• Works Consulted
• Index of First Lines