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Cliffsnotes on Shakespeare's Sonnets
Numbering more than 150, Shakespeare's sonnets have contributed significantly to discussions of the elusive character of the Bard. While most of the poems are addressed to a young man, others invoke the renowned Dark Lady. Each sonnet is interpreted, focusing on language particular to the poem, as well as on how the sonnet form furthers meaning. In addition, Shakespeare's major themes of love and beauty; mutability; and time and immortality are explored.
112 pages, Paperback
First published April 15, 2000
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About the author
Carl Senna
11Ìýbooks9ÌýfollowersCarl Senna is a published author of children's books and young adult books. Published credits of Carl Senna include Black Press and the Struggle for Civil Rights.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 8, 2014
This Notes companion was in fact pretty good. Even though I had supplemented my reading with the exhaustive commentaries of the Norton editions and occasionally of the NCS edition, I had glanced at these notes wherever the commentaries, which is line-by-line, was not allowing me a full sense of a sonnet's meaning. The 'quick summaries' provided by these Notes can come in handy.
Eventually I got into the habit of reading these notes after each sonnet and while it is true that they hardly said anything more than what the critical commentaries said, they did summarize it to an extent. Primarily, they were helpful since it is useful to get a quick summary of a sonnet's critical reception before reading the line-by-line commentary. There are some out dated notions present too, that the reader should be in the look-out for.
It would not be advisable to use only this companion while reading the sonnets.
July 24, 2016
I read this along with the No Fear Shakespeare version of the sonnets, which has a modern version in addition to the original. The NFS book gave me a good idea of the meanings of the sonnets, but this helped me understand them even more.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
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