Review of “Shakespeare’s Sonnets and Poems: A Very Short Introduction,” by Jonathan F.S. Post

Expansive for a volume with so little page space, Jonathan F.S. Post’s Shakespeare’s Sonnets and Poems: Very Short Introduction is a valuable addition to the libraries of novices and experts alike. It certainly won’t take up space on the shelf: the books in the Very Short Introduction series are palm-sized, or if you prefer, scaled like an octavo. In the precious time he has (“Very Short” in this context can be defined as under 200 pages), Post leaps post-haste across Shakespeare’s poetic corpus in a few punchy chapters: “1. Poet and playwright,” “2. Venus and Adonis,” “3. The Rape of Lucrece,” “4. On first looking into Shakespeare’s Sonnets,” “5. Further patterns and irruptions in the Sonnets,” and “6. A Lover’s Complaint and ‘The Phoenix and Turtle.’” Readers will have the sense they are in the classroom with a professor who has much to say but is eyeing the clock warily: what we get is a series of distilled points and charismatic close readings, wry allusions, and informal asides that do not so much “introduce” Shakespeare’s poems as illuminate them.

In his early chapters, Post establishes an argument that becomes a recurring theme in the book. He sets up a distinction between Shakespeare’s dramatic works and his poetry, making no bones about which he prefers: “You can do things with thoughts on the page that cannot be acted out on the stage,” he writes in his chapter on Venus and Adonis (24). This is not to say that Post ignores the…