Ideas of Order: A Close Reading of Shakespeare's Sonnets

Neil L. Rudenstine

Nov 2014 · Sold by Farrar, Straus and Giroux

About this ebook

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.

About the author

Neil L. Rudenstine graduated from Princeton University, was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, earned his PhD in English Literature at Harvard, and remained on Harvard's faculty until 1968. After two decades as Professor, Dean, and Provost at Princeton, he was President of Harvard University from 1991 to 2001. He is currently a trustee of the Barnes Foundation and is chair of the boards of ARTstor, the New York Public Library, the Rockefeller Archive Center, as well as vice-chair of the board of the J. Paul Getty Trust. His several books include Sidney's Poetic Development; English Poetic Satire (with G.S. Rousseau); In Pursuit of the PhD (with W. G. Bowen); Pointing Our Thoughts; and The House of Barnes: The Man, The Collection, The Controversy. He lives in Princeton, NJ.