Review of A Companion to Shakespeare's Sonnets, ed. Michael Schoenfeldt.(Book review)

A Companion to Shakespeare's Sonnets, ed. Michael Schoenfeldt. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007. 521pp. ISBN-13: 978405121552; ISBN-10: 1405121556.

Tom Rooney

Central European University

rooneyt@ceu.hu

Tom Rooney. "Review of A Companion to Shakespeare's Sonnets, ed. Michael Schoenfeldt."Early Modern Literary Studies 13.3 (January, 2008) 10.1-10 .

In his introduction to this latest volume in the Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture series, editor Michael Schoenfeldt modestly claims that Shakespeare's sonnets "remain far richer and more interesting than anything we can say about them." (9) However, a number of the critics in this collection prove him wrong. The breadth and depth of critical thought that has gone into the essays is extraordinary, and there is much to consider here both for those new to the sonnets as well as more experienced readers.

A Companion to Shakespeare's Sonnets includes 25 essays, only 3 of which have been published previously. They are grouped into nine sections covering a range of topics, from issues of genre and sonnet history to those of biography and editing, from the appearance of the sonnets in manuscript and print to the relationship of the poems to A Lover's Complaint and Shakespeare's plays. Three sections are devoted to specific themes: "Desire", "Darkness" and "Memory and Repetition". The contributors include editors of the sonnets (such as Colin Burrow) many established scholars (including Ilona Bell, Patrick Cheney and Heather Dubrow) as well as several whose voices, according to Schoenfeldt "are just emerging." (7) An old-spelling text of Shake-speare's Sonnets and A Lover's Complaint is included in an appendix.