The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare's Poetry

The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare''s Poetry contains 38 original essays written by leading Shakespeareans around the world. Collectively these essays seek to return readers to a revivified understanding of Shakespeare''s verbal artistry in both the poems and the drama. The volume understands poetry to be not just a formal category designating a particular literary genre but to be inclusive of the dramatic verse as well and of Shakespeare''s influence as a poet on later generations of writers in English and beyond. Focusing on a broad set of interpretive concerns the volume tackles general matters of Shakespeare''s style earlier and later; questions of influence from classical continental and native sources; the importance of words line and rhyme to meaning; the significance of songs and ballads in the drama; the place of gender in the verse including the relationship of Shakespeare''s poetry to the visual arts; the different values attached to speaking Shakespeare in the theatre; and the adaptation of Shakespearean verse (as distinct from performance) into other periods and languages. The largest section with ten essays is devoted to the poems themselves: the Sonnets plus A Lover''s Complaint the narrative poems Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece and The Phoenix and the Turtle. If the volume as a whole urges a renewed involvement in the complex matter of Shakespeare''s poetry it does so as the individual essays testify by way of responding to critical trends and discoveries made during the last three decades.