San Antonio College Library

Gr 10-12 For advanced students, these collections in the Literary Companion (whether to British Literature or World Authors) series bring together a range of scholarly essays on classic texts. Each volume includes a biography of the author, a critical overview, and a brief introduction to each essay; there is also a glossary, a chronology, and a bibliography. For the Canterbury Tales, there are essays by various scholars on Chaucer's work, his language,...

"The Fickle Glass is a study of the problems, techniques, meaning, and value of Shakespeare's sonnets. The book sums and clarifies the problems, defends the order of the 1609 edition, proves that Christopher Marlowe is the rival poet (if sceptical hilarity is your response to such claim, the author requests only that you read the argument with care), analyzes-- in rich detail and Elizabethan context-- meter, rhetoric, and structure, and the major...

"Of Shakespeare's sonnets we know many details but little of their subjects and motives. This book delineates the customs and beliefs that shaped the sonnets, Shakespeare's life and world, and considers them in that context. This book argues for understanding the sonnets in their time, as this poet's edgy expression of the edgy culture of the English Renaissance"--Provided by publisher.

"This introduction provides a concise overview of the central issues and critical responses to Shakespeare's sonnets, looking at the themes, images, and structure of his work, as well as the social and historical circumstances surrounding its creation. This broad-ranging volume allows the reader to look beyond narrow interpretations, elaborating on the possible ways of reading the sonnets. Additionally, this text examines the fugitive identities of...

Shakespeare's sonnets can provide a mirror in which cultures can read their own critical biases. This text considers the form, sequence and content of the sonnets, and the literary context in which they were produced.

Argues that lyric making is universal across cultures, and uses the example of Shakespeare's "Sonnets" to showcase the human disposition to play with lyrical patterns.

"Few poetic forms have found more uses than the sonnet in English, and none is now more recognizable. It is one of the longest-lived of verse forms, and one of the briefest. A mere fourteen lines, fashioned by intricate rhymes, it is, as Dante Gabriel Rossetti called it, "a moment's monument." From the Renaissance to the present, the sonnet has given poets a superb vehicle for private contemplation, introspection, and the expression of passionate...