Close readings that train a brilliant spotlight on Shakespeare's
poetic performance, without however quite doing justice to the full
dimensions of his achievement. A celebrated and prolific critic,
reviewer, and lecturer on poetry, Vendler (The Given and the Made,
1995) offers an illuminating companion for Bardolators of all
levels and stripes. Adamant that hers is a work of "commentary,"
Vendler analyzes each sonnet in turn (they appear in both original
and modernized formats), explicating in an accessible manner the
structures that organize them, without dwelling on the significance
of her interpretations. While Vendler attends dutifully to imagery,
and occasionally (too seldom, in fact) to rhythm and meter, she
makes Shakespeare's language her central object. She illuminates
the sources - practical, philosphical, Anglo-Saxon, and classical -
for his multifaceted vocabulary; underlines his love for anagrams,
puns, and echoing effects; and highlights the subtle ways in which
the sonnets draw on his dramatist's knack for dialogue. Her overall
purpose is to showcase the dynamic force of the sonnets as "speech
acts," as interventions in ongoing discussions. This approach works
best where Vendler can invoke an intimate interlocutor for
Shakespeare typically the Young Man or the Dark Lady, considered by
critical tradition to be the sonnets' addressees. For example, her
discussion of the famous sonnet 116 (which begins "Let me not to
the marriage of true minds / Admit impediments") convincingly
contends that Shakespeare there responds to the Young Man whom he
so admired. But Vendler seldom considers how the poet might have
been seeking to project his voice into broader discussions. Nor,
unfortunately, given her gifts, does she even so much as gesture
toward relating her readings to the discussion of
Shakespeare-in-history that has lately absorbed not only academic
commentators, but also such mainstream writers as Garry Wills.
Nevertheless, an immensely enriching account of Shakespeare's
complex verse: readings whose perspicuity and accuracy will form a
solid basis for many more. (Kirkus Reviews)
Helen Vendler, widely regarded as our most accomplished interpreter
of poetry, here serves as an incomparable guide to some of the
best-loved poems in the English language. In detailed commentaries
on Shakespeare's 154 sonnets, Vendler reveals previously
unperceived imaginative and stylistic features of the poems,
pointing out not only new levels of import in particular lines, but
also the ways in which the four parts of each sonnet work together
to enact emotion and create dynamic effect. The
commentaries--presented alongside the original and modernized
texts--offer fresh perspectives on the individual poems, and, taken
together, provide a full picture of Shakespeare's techniques as a
working poet. With the help of Vendler's acute eye, we gain an
appreciation of "Shakespeare's elated variety of invention, his
ironic capacity, his astonishing refinement of technique, and,
above all, the reach of his skeptical imaginative intent."
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