Themes and Variations in Shakespeare's Sonnets

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Psychology Press, 2005 - Drama - 256 pages
First published in 1961.

This study analyses Shakespeare's treatment of the universal themes of Beauty, Love and Time. He compares Shakespeare with other great poets and sonnet writers - Pindar, Horace and Ovid, with Petrarch, Tasso and Ronsart, with Shakespeare's own English predecessors and contemporaries, notably Spenser, Daniel and Drayton and with John Donne.

By discussing their resemblances and differences, a not altogether orthodox picture of Shakespeare's attitude to life is presented, which suggests that he was not as phlegmatic and equable a person as critics have often supposed.

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Contents

Preface
9
POETRY AS IMMORTALISATION FROM PINDAR
25
Shakespeare and Petrarch
44
Shakespeare and Tasso 53 358
53
Shakespeare and his English predecessors
69
DEVOURING TIME AND FADING BEAUTY FROM
93
Shakespeares sonnets on Love as the Defier of Time
102
The instinctiveness and unphilosophicalness of Shakespeares
119
Personifications of Time Age and Youth by Ovid Horace
134
Tragedy and the Whole Truth
142
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