The Secret Architecture of Shakespeare's Sonnets

Explores the intricate hidden organisation of Shakespeare's Sonnets This book argues the idea that Shakespeare was deeply engaged with other poets and with pursuing a career as a poet, and that the organisational schemes of the Sonnets have been hiding in plain sight for over four centuries. The fundamental reason why his schemes have gone unnoticed is historical: within decades of his death, conventions of sonnet sequences became unfamiliar, and they have largely remained so since. Weaving together ideas of the Sonnets as a free-standing sequence and as a sonnet sequence among other poets' complex sequences, we discover new insights into Shakespeare's career as a poet and new ways of reading his most famous sonnets and the hidden gems. Steven Monte is Full Professor of English at the College of Staten Island (CUNY).