SHAKESPEARES SONNETS
KENNETH MUIR
First published in 1979
Reprinted in 2005 by
Routledge
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Transferred to Digital Printing 2008
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
1979, 1982 George Allen & Unwin (Publishers) Ltd
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library
Shakespeares Sonnets
ISBN 0-415-35298-3
ISBN 0-415-33086-6 (set)
Miniset: Critical Studies
Series: Routledge Library Editions Shakespeare
Shakespeares Sonnets
KENNETH MUIR
Emeritus Professor of English Literature
The University of Liverpool
George Allen & Unwin (Publishers) Ltd 1979, 1982
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. No reproduction
without permission. All rights reserved.
George Allen & Unwin (Publishers) Ltd,
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George Allen & Unwin (Publishers) Ltd,
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First published in 1979
First published in paperback in 1982
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Muir, Kenneth
Shakespeares sonnets.(Unwin critical library).
1. Shakespeare, William. Sonnets
I. Title
821.3 PR2848 7940008
ISBN 0048210420
ISBN 0048210552 Pbk
Set in 10 on 11 point Plantin
and printed in Great Britain by
Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press) Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk
Unlike many writers on the Sonnets, I do not know the answers to all the problems which are discussed at length in the second volume of the great Variorum edition. Forty years ago, when I collaborated with Sean OLoughlin on The Voyage to Illyria, I thought I knew many of the answers. I no longer have the brash confidence of youth. So the reader must not expect to be told of the identity of Mr W.H., nor whether he was the person to whom the Sonnets were addressed, or merely the procurer of the manuscript. I do not know whether the Dark Lady was Lucy Negro, or Emilia Lanier, the pious author of Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum, or someone else, or an imaginary character. I do not know the names of the rival poets. I do not know how far, if at all, the Sonnets were autobiographical. I do not know whether Shakespeare approved or disapproved of their publication.