Shakespeare's Sonnets

"I’ve enjoyed teaching from this thought-provoking Arden version, which includes all 154 sonnets plus “A Lover’s Complaint” (published in the same volume as the sonnets in 1609). Duncan-Jones’s thorough introduction covers the poems’ publication, who their addressees might have been, and the long reception of how they’ve been read over the last 400+ years. While she modernizes spelling and punctuation, her notes carefully attend to how such modifications inflect our interpretation. She encourages readers to hear wordplay that might otherwise be glossed over. Each sonnet’s paired with facing-page commentary, offering shrewd observations about word histories, classical and contemporary allusions, and connections across Shakespeare’s plays and poems. This format allows each poem to breathe on its own; then, your eye can shift over, consulting her observations as much or as little as you prefer. Throughout, it’s just a well-conceived edition. At first, yes. Duncan-Jones is a great scholar who’s also a great teacher (not always one and the same, alas!), so each note sketches a quick summary of the poem. The ‘plot’ of a sonnet can be pretty banal, in many cases, but her explanations quickly situate the reader: ‘oh, the speaker misses the beloved’ or ‘hmm, the speaker is jealous of the addressee again.’ So that’s helpful: an initial paraphrase, then you can return to read the poem, oscillating back and forth with her notes. You become involved in an ongoing conversation with Shakespeare, as well as with a judicious editor."