Product Description

Alex Jennings will be the reader for this unabridged recording of the The Sonnets.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1330146 in Books
• Published on: 1999-02-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 168 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780821225592
• Condition: USED - GOOD
• Notes:
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From Library Journal
Shakespeare is again the hottest ticket in town: he has been voted the person of the millennium in Great Britain, while an Oscar-nominated film about his love life is burning up box offices. Along with being the world's greatest playwright, his unparalleled genius for rhyme and meter make him also one of the greatest poets, evidenced by the 154 sonnets he penned throughout his life. This beautiful hardcover offers them all, with illustrations and an index of first lines. A real top-shelf edition.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
"They are the work of someone whose ear is unerring." --W.H. Auden

"He is writing about the world, the largeness of which he had perhaps only recently discovered." --Mark Van Doren

"The striking peculiarity of Shakespeare's mind was its generic quality, its power to communicate with all other minds." --William Hazlitt

"Shakespeare is the greatest university of all." --William Carlos Williams
-- Review

Review

Customer Reviews

Classic poetry
The sonnet is one of the more difficult-to-write forms of poetry, with very strict rules on rhyming and lines, and that makes Shakespeare's collection of sonnets all the more impressive. Shakespeare sprinkled his various plays with poetry and songs, but there is something of a different flavor to these works.

Titleless, identified only by numbers, these poems have vivid metaphors and imagery ("let not winter's ragged hand deface," "gold candles fix'd in heaven's air"). The tone of the poetry varies from one sonnet to the next; sometimes it focuses on old age, to love that "looks upon tempests and is not shaken," and simple expressions that can't really be interpreted any other way. Some of it is pretty well-known ("Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?/Thou art more lovely and more temperate") but most of them you won't have seen before.

Even if you're not normally a fan of poetry, the delicate touch of Shakespeare's words is worth checking into. Fantastic.

Premium edition of the Sonnets
This is a nice edition, worthy of gift-giving. There is only one Sonnet per page, so you can choose one and bookmark it for a friend. The paper is quality and the binding and overall look is very good.

A great find - It's both volumes
This edition of the sonnets is one of the most important and the description on Amazon is misleading - It is actually both volumes 24 and 25 bound together so you get the complete set It's hard to find this book so it is a great find in this version