Patrick Cheney

Possibly my favourite in this series of Cambridge Companions to the works of the Bard. The role of poetry in society has changed far more in the last 400 years than that of narrative performance, so Shakespeare's poems - particularly the narrative works - are far less read or understood in 2016. I think they're all fascinating (with an especial interest in "The Rape of Lucrece") and it's lovely to see a work that attempts to redress the balance.

The companion looks at each of the major poems but also the role of poetry in Shakespeare's works, his contemporaries, and how it influenced the works of the era. (After all, Shakespeare's own near-contemporaries, such as Marlowe, were largely poets placed on the stage; English-language theatre was only just learning to walk.)

The volume is weakest on the Sonnets, but that's because it's very hard to cover 154 poems in such a medium. It's not really a worry, given how much ink has been spilled on that subject already!… (mere)