The Cambridge Companion to the Sonnet

Description

Beginning with the early masters of the sonnet form, Dante and Petrarch, the Companion examines the reinvention of the sonnet across times and cultures, from Europe to America. In doing so, it considers sonnets as diverse as those by William Shakespeare, William Wordsworth, George Herbert and e. e. cummings. The chapters explore how we think of the sonnet as a 'lyric' and what is involved in actually trying to write one. The book includes a lively discussion between three distinguished contemporary poets - Paul Muldoon, Jeff Hilson and Meg Tyler - on the experience of writing a sonnet, and a chapter which traces the sonnet's diffusion across manuscript, print, screen and the internet. A fresh and authoritative overview of this major poetic form, the Companion expertly guides the reader through the sonnet's history and development into the global multimedia phenomenon it is today.

A. D. Cousins is Professor of English at Macquarie University. Peter Howarth teaches in the English Department at Queen Mary, University of London.

'A comprehensive companion to the sonnet in English.' Will Christie, Australian Book Review '... The Cambridge Companion to the Sonnet bears the hallmarks of its series ... the volume offers a passable introduction to current thinking about its subject, and there are spots of original thinking.' Recent Studies in the English Renaissance