Askance And Strangely

The Complete Works: Modern Critical Edition is part of the landmark New Oxford Shakespeare—an entirely new consideration of all of Shakespeare's works, edited afresh from all the surviving original versions of his work, and drawing on the latest literary, textual, and theatrical scholarship. In one attractive volume, the Modern Critical Edition gives today's students and playgoers the very best resources they need to understand and enjoy all Shakespeare's works. The authoritative text is accompanied by extensive explanatory and performance notes, and innovative introductory materials which lead the reader into exploring questions about interpretation, textual variants, literary criticism, and performance, for themselves. The Modern Critical Edition presents the plays and poetry in the order in which Shakespeare wrote them, so that readers can follow the development of his imagination, his engagement with a rapidly evolving culture and theatre, and his relationship to his literary contemporaries. The New Oxford Shakespeare consists of four interconnected publications: the Modern Critical Edition (with modern spelling), the Critical Reference Edition (with original spelling), a companion volume on Authorship, and an online version integrating all of this material on OUP's high-powered scholarly editions platform. Together, they provide the perfect resource for the future of Shakespeare studies.

Shakespeare's sonnets are the greatest single work of lyric poetry in English, as passionate and daring as any love poems we may ever encounter, and yet, they are often misunderstood. Ideas of Order: A Close Reading of Shakespeare's Sonnets reveals an underlying structure within the 154 poems that illuminates the entire work, and provides a guide—for first-time readers as well as scholars—that inspires a new understanding of this complex masterpiece. Elizabethan scholar and former Harvard University president Neil L. Rudenstine makes a compelling case for the existence of a dramatic arc within the work through an expert interpretation of distinct groups of sonnets in relationship to one another. The sonnets show us a poet in turmoil whose love for a young man—who returns his affections—is utterly transformative, binding him in such an irresistible way that it survives a number of infidelities. And the poet and the young man are drawn in to a cycle of lust and betrayal by a "dark lady," a woman with the "power to make love groan." Rudenstine's reading unveils the relationship between major groups of poems: the expressions of love, the transgressions, the longings, the jealousies, and the reconciliations. This critical analysis is accompanied by the text of all of Shakespeare's sonnets. Accessible and thought-provoking, Ideas of Order is an invaluable companion to this cornerstone of literature.