Shakespeare and the Poet's Life

by Gary Schmidgall

Overview

Shakespeare and the Poet's Life explores a central biographical question: why did Shakespeare choose to cease writing sonnets and court-focused long poems like The Rape of Lucrece and Venus and Adonis and continue writing plays? Author Gary Schmidgall persuasively demonstrates the value of contemplating the professional reasons Shakespeare—or any poet of the time—ceased being an Elizabethan court poet and focused his efforts on drama and the Globe. Students of Shakespeare and of Renaissance poetry will find Schmidgall's approach and conclusions both challenging and illuminating.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813117065
Publisher:	University Press of Kentucky
Publication date:	09/06/1990
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	6.18(w) x 9.67(h) x 0.83(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Gary Schmidgall, professor of English at Hunter College, is the author of numerous books including Conserving Walt Whitman's Fame: Selections from Horace Traubel's Conservator, 1890-1919.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments     ix
Note on Citations     x
Introduction     1
"Thou Thing Most Abhorred": The Poet and His Muse     11
"Dedicated Words": The Strategies of Front Matter     48
Poet's Labors Lost: Patronage in Shakespeare     89
"Chameleon Muse": The Poet's Life in Shakespeare's Courts     123
"Fearful Meditation": The Young Man and the Poet's Life     161
Epilogue: Statues and Breathers     196
Exemplary Front Matter     204
Notes     207
Index     229

Editorial Reviews

Argues persuasively that the image of the poet offered in Renaissance historical documents can illuminate Shakespeare's own views.

South Atlantic Review

Impressive in its range and scholarship; it is also gracefully and tactfully written.

Shakespeare Bulletin

"Argues persuasively that the image of the poet offered in Renaissance historical documents can illuminate Shakespeare's own views." — South Atlantic Review

"Impressive in its range and scholarship; it is also gracefully and tactfully written." — Shakespeare Bulletin

From the Publisher

Focusing on the speculative question of why Shakespeare, who combined the professions of poet and dramatist into the mid-1590s, turned solely to the writing of drama thereafter, this study is, above all, about the life of poetry in the English Renaissance--the motivations of poets, their attitudes toward the art, and the attitude of society toward the profession. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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