CAM Reading Shakespeare's Sonnets ISSN 1751-5661
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CAM ISSN 1751-5653(Print) ISSN 1751-5661(Online) Issue 19 – December 2010 ISSN 1751 -5661 2010 – A Year in Reviews . I cannot recall a more exciting year for Shakespearean literary events and publications. When I think about 2010’s great publications, I am drawn to Arden’s controversial release of Double Falsehood , James Shapiro’s best-selling Contested Will , John Pitcher’s long - awaited edition of The Winter’s Tale , and Stanley Wells’ Shakespeare, Sex, and Love . This is not even mentioning the number of RSC editions of the plays, Barbara Hodgdon’s Arden 3 edition of The Taming of the Shrew (which is now the editorial benchmark by a long measure), and Julian Curry’s Shakespeare on Stage (for which Will has provided a review in this edition). But now I’ve gone and mentioned them! Readers, there’s so much to look forward to in 2011 – the Oxford Shakespeare’s final play ( Richard II ) and John Jowett’s Sir Thomas More (f or Arden) being just the tip of the scholarly iceberg. Happy Holidays from all of us at the bookshop! See you in the new year! Best Wishes, Matt Kubus (Bookshop Assistant) and Will Sharpe (Editor) Paterson is a poet first and actually like most of them? Or Reading Shakespeare’s foremost. It would have been far perhaps Paterson thinks he is Sonnets better for him to write a series of presenting something more like Don Paterson poems in response to John Ruskin’s love-hate account of Faber and Faber £17.99 Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Venice, confining our appreciation ISBN 9780571245024 to his taste? His starting point is unfortunate, as he seems to thinks most of them Part of Paterson’s problem is his are overrated. Paterson fatal assumption that the Sonnets extinguishes (or at least deflates) are autobiographical and are many of the poems: ‘This isn’t a printed in a discernible, narrative great poem’ (Sonnet 2); ‘Another sequence. He (mis)reads them as dull one’ (Sonnet 10); ‘Not much to true expressions of love, rather than see here, folks’ (Sonnet 41); ‘I’d as highly artificially shaped poems cheerfully send this one into the about love. This leads him to unanthologised dark‘ (Sonnet 68); paraphrase nearly all of them ‘Oh enough already’ (Sonnet 72); which, as a poet himself, he knows ‘Let it go, man’ (Sonnet 80); ‘This is is surely the kiss of death to any The following review has kindly pretty dull stuff’ (Sonnet 98), ‘Pretty poem. been provided by Dr. Paul average effort, really’ (Sonnet 111), Edmondson, Director of Education ‘a cheap trick’ (Sonnet 130); and In its more positive moments, for the Shakespeare Birthplace ‘very little interest for the Paterson’s account is not without Trust. It was originally published on contemporary reader’ (Sonnet occasional flashes of insight. Of bloggingshakespeare.com, entitled 144). He dismisses Sonnets 27 and Sonnet 129 (‘Th’expense of spirit in “Extinguishing Shakespeare’s 29 (which have meant a lot to a waste of shame’), for example, Sonnets”. You can find the piece readers over the centuries) as ‘two he comments ‘in the syntax of its in its original form at duffers’ (p. 86) and suggests that disgusted litany, it sounds to me like www.bloggingshakespeare.com/e Sonnet 30 (which he calls ‘facile’) George Herbert’s “Prayer”, only xtinguishing-shakespeares-sonnets would be better without its final read backwards in a mirror.’ couplet. This is the sonnet which Occasionally, he demonstrates his “Thursday 4 November sees the ends: ‘But if the while I think on specialist interest in poetry but publication of Reading thee, dear friend,/All losses are sometimes through jargon. I Shakespeare’s Sonnets: A New restored, and sorrows end.’ But the suspect I won’t be alone in finding Commentary by multi-prize-winning whole point of this couplet is to turn some of this unintelligible. Scottish poet Don Paterson. It is us away from the poet’s morose His commentary is larded with handsomely presented by Faber self-reflections, and to admit a and Faber and will attract a great slang and asides to popular ‘thee’, a ‘dear friend’ who rescues culture. This could be finely deal of attention. the poet from isolation. employed, but he lets it run away As I settled down to read it I There are too many facetious with him. At worst this takes us into became more and more frustrated asides: ‘the poem is nothing to some sweeping generalizations. At by its tone of voice, the shout about’ (Sonnet 17), ‘this one point during his commentary assumptions Paterson is making conceit looks like a ten-car pile-up’ on Sonnet 35 he divides up male about the Sonnets, and the kinds of (Sonnet 52) and, worse, ‘given how sexuality into heterosexual and comments he is inviting us to dodgy it was, running it on to the homosexual and generalises about engage with. Without doubt, this is menu from my local Chinese how people of different sexualities one of the most self-indulgent takeaway is going to improve it’ understand the relationship studies of the Sonnets I’ve ever (Sonnet 98 when followed by between love and sex (p. 107). seen (and they have certainly Sonnet 99). Why produce a five- Elsewhere, in the context of sexual inspired many shelves of misguided hundred page commentary on frustration and Sonnet 129, he says criticism over the centuries). Shakespeare’s Sonnets if you don’t that ‘many priests [in the Roman Catholic Church] signed up because they were career In the past five years, having had And Furthermore paedophiles’ (p. 390). Such jibes great success with the more Judi Dench do not sit easily in a commentary generalised volumes dedicated to Weidenfeld & Nicolson £20.00 on Shakespeare, or indeed single dramatists, the ISBN 9780297859673 ‘Companion’ series has moved in anywhere. the direction of specificity, Shakespeare’s Sonnets deserve far focusing on a particular topic in better treatment than this (an the field of English Renaissance index, bibliography, a few notes, Drama: Shakespeare’s last plays, and a list of further reading would Shakespeare’s poetry, have been nice, too). Shakespearean comedy and tragedy, Shakespeare’s history This book ought to be a cause for plays, Shakespeare on stage, on celebration: a brand new reading film, et cetera, et cetera, et of some of the greatest poems by cetera. The latest addition to the a much-lauded contemporary series on English Renaissance poet. tragedy (complete with a detailed chronology of the development of The party will have to go with a the genre) professes to develop swing without me.” If we think of the earlier volume the renewed interest in staging Scenes from my Life (2005) as a (Paul Edmondson) non-Shakespearean tragedy in a pictorial history of Judi Dench’s life scholarly way. and career, then we can describe The Cambridge Companion The volume is divided into two And Furthermore as an to English Renaissance parts, the first of which accompanying narrative account Tragedy / The Cambridge contextualizes the recurring that fills in more of the detail and Introduction to themes within the plays of the fleshes out her story. genre. Each of the essays in this Put together with the help of her Shakespeare’s Poetry section is mindful of the classical biographer John Miller, And Emma Smith and Garrett A. inheritance of the dramatists, as Furthermore is a roughly well as their ability to adapt and Sullivan Jr. (ed.) / Michael chronological collection of thoughts, revolutionize the way in which anecdotes, and memories. Her Schoenfeldt these stories were re-written, preface claims that this is far from a Cambridge Univ. Press £17.99 / £13.99 staged, and received. Andrew ISBN 9780521734646 / 9780521705073 straight autobiography, and, sure Hadfield’s essay, ‘Tragedy and the enough, reading this book is more Nation State,’ was of particular like sitting down for a chat with an interest insofar as it accounted for old friend and looking through their the socio-political interests of the photograph albums. Beginning with dramatists as well as those who her childhood and early career at may have viewed the original The Old Vic in 1957, her account performances of the plays. Many takes in five decades of private and of the essays refer to Norton and public life, and brings us right up to Sackville’s 1558 tragedy, date with her 2010 role as Titania in A Gorboduc , which is often Midsummer Night’s Dream for Peter considered to be the first dramatic Hall at the Kingston Rose Theatre. tragedy in English. Much of the Warm and witty throughout, what volume’s strength can be impresses is the sheer diversity of Cambridge University Press attributed to the General Editors, roles across stage and screen and continues to distinguish itself from Emma Smith and Garrett A the infectious enthusiasm with which the elite set of academic Sullivan, who compiled a seamless she recalls it all. There are some publishers. Especially with regard anthology whose essays speak to wonderful ‘behind the scenes’ stories to Shakespeare studies, one another. The example of on forgetting her lines, less than Cambridge’s commitment to Gorboduc is testimony to that. glamorous film locations, long producing the finest scholarship in Part two performs various readings running practical jokes with friends, the field can be best exemplified of selected plays that one will trying her hand at directing and by its production of texts that often find in an anthology of getting ready for the Academy range from the most advanced Renaissance drama: The Spanish Awards ceremony. My favourite scholarly monographs to Tragedy , Edward II , The involves a troublesome pair of high- introductory anthologies for the Changeling , and ‘Tis Pity She’s a heeled shoes worn under her use of under- and post-graduate Whore being just a few.