Excerpts from the Introduction

"Because a comprehension of the internal logic and the 'old finery' of Elizabethan lyric has now almost vanished, I have written this Commentary to restore them to view as they appear in Shakespeare's Sonnets. I hope, of course, that the logic and the finery will be relished as soon as seen."

"To arrive at the understandings proposed in my Commentary, I found it necessary to learn the Sonnets by heart....No pianist or violinist would omit to learn a sonata by heart before interpreting it in public performance, but the equal habit of knowing poetry by heart before interpreting it has been lost. I first memorized many of the Sonnets...in the heartfelt way of youth, and I hope I have not lost that 'heartfelt' sense of the poems. But I have since learned to love in a more conscious way Shakespeare's elated variety of invention, his ironic capacity, his astonishing refinement of technique, and, above all, the reach of his skeptical, imaginative intent. I hope in this Commentary to illustrate those qualities, as well as, from time to time, the pathos, reflectiveness, and moral urgency already well described by previous readers."

"The Sonnets... deserve detailed and particular commentary because they comprise a virtual anthology of lyric possibility--in the poet's choice of subgenres, in arrangements of words, in tone, in dramatic modeling of the inner life, in speech-acts."

"The ethics of lyric writing lies in the accuracy of its representation of inner life, and in that alone."

"The persistent wish to turn the sequence into a novel (or a drama) speaks to the interests of the sociopsychological critic, whose aim is less to inquire into the successful carrying-out of a literary project than to investigate the representation of gender relations...It does no good to act as if these lyrics were either a novel or a documentary of a lived life."

"The 'story' of the Sonnets continues to fascinate readers, but lyric is both more and less than story...A coherent psychological account of the Sonnets is what the Sonnets exist to frustrate. They do not fully reward psychological criticism...any more than they do political criticism."

"The true 'actors' in lyric are words, not 'dramatic persons' and the drama of any lyric is constituted by the successive entrances of new sets of words...Thus, the introduction of a new linguistic strategy is, in a sonnet, as interruptive and interesting as the entrance of a new character in a play."

"A writer of Shakespeare's seriousness writes from internal necessity--to do the best he can under his commission...and to perfect his art. What is the inner agenda of the Sonnets? What are their compositional motivations? What does a writer gain from working, over and over, in one subgenre? My brief answer is that Shakespeare learned to find strategies to enact feeling in form, feelings in forms, multiplying both to a superlative degree through 154 poems. No poet has ever found more linguistic forms by which to replicate human responses than Shakespeare in the Sonnets."

"I leave a record here of what one person has remarked so that others can compare their own noticings with mine. In such a way, we may advance our understanding of Shakespeare's procedures as a working poet--that is, as a master of aesthetic strategy."

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