Research Catalog

Title

First readers of Shakespeare's sonnets, 1590-1790 / Faith D. Acker.

Author

Acker, Faith D.

Publication

• New York, NY : Routledge, 2021.
• ©2021

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xxiii, 246 pages : illustrations (black and white); 24 cm.

Summary

For more than four centuries, cultural preferences, literary values, critical contexts, and personal tastes have governed readers' responses to Shakespeare's sonnets. Early private readers often considered these poems in light of the religious, political, and humanist values by which they lived. Other seventeenth- and eighteenth- century readers, such as stationers and editors, balanced their personal literary preferences against the imagined or actual interests of the literate public to whom they marketed carefully curated editions of the sonnets, often successfully. Whether public or private, however, many disparate sonnet interpretations from the sonnets' first two centuries in print have been overlooked by modern sonnet scholarship, with its emphasis on narrative and amorous readings of the 1609 sequence. First Readers of Shakespeare's Sonnets reintroduces many early readings of Shakespeare's sonnets, arguing that studying the priorities and interpretations of these previous readers expands the modern critical applications of these poems, thereby affording them numerous future applications. This volume draws upon book history, manuscript studies, and editorial theory to recover four lost critical approaches to the sonnets, highlighting early readers' interests in Shakespeare's classical adaptations, political applicability, religious themes, and rhetorical skill during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Series Statement

Routledge studies in Shakespeare

Uniform Title

Routledge studies in Shakespeare.

Subject

• Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616
• Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 > Criticism and interpretation > History
• Sonnets (Shakespeare, William)

Genre/Form

• Criticism, interpretation, etc.
• History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

The passionate pilgrim and Shakespeare's 'sugred' reputation -- Reading and revising Shake-Speare's sonnets (1609) -- The manuscripts of Sonnet 2: sex, sonnets, and spirituality -- John Benson's sonnet sequences (poems: written by Wil. Shake-Speare. Gent.) -- Celebrations of church and king: an early Cambridge reader -- Restoration revisions: musical, dramatic, and miscellany readings -- Supplementing Shakespeare and creating the canon -- Edmond Malone: plotting the sonnets -- Reading the sonnets after Malone: independent responses

Call Number

JFE 21-2790

ISBN

• 0367501368
• 9780367501365

OCLC

1150971213

Author

Acker, Faith D., author.

Title

First readers of Shakespeare's sonnets, 1590-1790 / Faith D. Acker.

Publisher

New York, NY : Routledge, 2021.

Copyright Date

©2021

Type of Content

text

still image

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Routledge studies in Shakespeare

Routledge studies in Shakespeare.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Research Call Number

JFE 21-2790