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Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Date Published: 2001-12-01
ISBN-13:9780140714531ISBN:0140714537
Description: Very good. Very minimal damage to the cover (no holes or tears, only minimal scuff marks), in some instances dust jackets are not included, no missing pages, minimal to no highlighting/under. read more
Description: Acceptable. Book is in good reading condition. Cover has wear at edges and corners, and may have creases. Spine has wear at edges and creases. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Date Published: 2001
ISBN-13:9780140714531ISBN:0140714537
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Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Date Published: 2001
ISBN-13:9780140714531ISBN:0140714537
Description: Good. Book has been read before and shows some slight wear. Goodwillnyonline carries a wide range of quality new and used items at competitive prices. Goodwillnyonline is operated by Goodwill Industries of Greater New York & Northern New Jersey. A major provider of services for people with disabilities and other barriers to employment. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Date Published: 2001
ISBN-13:9780140714531ISBN:0140714537
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Edition: Reprint.
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Penguin Books, New York, New York
Date Published: 2001
ISBN-13:9780140714531ISBN:0140714537
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. No creases to the spine. A very nice copy. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 208 p. Pelican Shakespeare (Paperback). Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Date Published: 2001-12-01
ISBN-13:9780140714531ISBN:0140714537
Description: Good. All books in Acceptable-Good condition. Books may NOT include Online Access Codes (InfoTrac, MyEconLab). Books MAY contain highliting/bent pages. We ship M-F. read more
The first 17 or so sonnets in the series left me taken aback. It's right there in the first line of Sonnet #1:
1. From fairest creatures we desire increase That thereby beauty's Rose might never die But as the riper should be time decease His tender heir might bear his memory
There's this obsession with propagating the species. This concern about breeding dominates the first 17 sonnets in the series, something I had not been aware of before.
2. ... How much more praise deserv'd thy beauty's use If thou couldst answer, 'This fair child of mine Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse'
3. Look in the glass, and tell the face thou viewest Now is the time this face should form another
4. .... Then how, when nature calls thee to be gone, What acceptable audit canst thou leave?
6. .... That's for thyself to breed another thee
7. ..... So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon, Unlooked on diest, unless thou get a son.
8. ... mark how one string, sweet husband to another, Strikes each in each by mutual ordering; Resembling sire and child and happy mother, ... Sings this to thee, "Thou single will prove none".
9. ... Ah if thou issueless shalt hap to die, the world will wail thee, like a makeless wife .. No love towards others in that bosom sits That on himself such murd'rous shame commits.
10. ... Make thee another self, for love of me, that beauty still may live in thine or thee.
11. ... Let those whom nature hath not made for store, Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish. ... She carv'd thee for her seal, and mean thereby Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.
Actually, as a gay man, I find that "harsh, featureless, and rude" pretty offensive. It continues:
12. ... And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.
13. ... Against this coming end you should prepare, And your sweet semblance to some other give.
14. ... If from thyself to store thou wouldst convert; Or else of thee this I prognosticate: Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.
17. ... But were some child of yours alive that time, You should live twice, in it and in my rime.
Fortunately, #18 is the glorious "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?", and from here on out it appears to be smooth sailing.
But that battery of breeder-boosting that opens this collection was a little off-putting, to say the least. It seems so dismissive of those of us who were put on earth to carry out some other purpose, somehow.
But this is neither here nor there. This book contains some of the most awesome language in the entire body of English literature. To assign it a rating seems entirely presumptuous; nothing but 5 stars seems even conceivable.
My favorite, if forced to choose, is a conventional one:
#29. When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, ... Haply I think on thee --- and then my state, Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
Quite apart from the theme of the poem, how he changes mood with just that single line "like to the lark at break of day arising" astonishes me every time I read it."
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