Shakespeare's Poems

This Arden edition of Shakespeare's sonnets is closely based on the 1609 Quarto. As Katherine Duncan-Jones demonstrates, this text was authorized by Shakespeare himself, and may be based on an authorial manuscript. The whole carefully-ordered sequence, including "A Lover's Complaint", is read in the context of Shakespeare's career and of the poems' historical setting within early Jacobean culture. A clear-eyed analysis of homoerotic elements in the sonnets puts an end to the century of homophobic readings initiated by Sir Sidney Lee in 1897. Succinct and accessible notes guide the reader through complex vocabulary and syntax, as well as the poems' literary and cultural background. For ease of reference, these are printed on the same page-opening as the text.