Publisher's Synopsis
"An approachable and indispensable guide to Shakespeare's sonnets Shakespeare's sonnets are the greatest single work of lyric poetry in English, as passionate, daring, intimate, and moving as any love poems we may encounter. And yet, they are often misunderstood--as W. H. Auden remarked, "more nonsense has been talked and written, more intellectual and emotional energy expended in vain, on the sonnets of Shakespeare than on any other literary work in the world." Ideas of Order instills pleasure in this extraordinary verse, revealing an underlying narrative within the 154 poems that illuminates the work--providing a guide that inspires a new understanding of this complex masterpiece. The Elizabethan scholar and former Harvard University president Neil L. Rudenstine makes a compelling case for the existence of a dramatic arc within the work through an expert interpretation of distinct groups of sonnets in relationship to one another.
