Book chapter
Emotions in Shakespeare's Sonnets: "Past Reason Hunted"
Shakespeare for Everyone: The Emotional Worlds of Shakespeare’s Works, pp.153-164
Routledge, 1st
03/2025
Appears in Recent Faculty of Education Publications
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Abstract
This chapter considers emotions in Shakespeare's sonnets through the creative insights of a practising poet. These compact, intricate, and highly stylised poems constitute one of the most eloquent expressions of emotion in the English language. You will learn about Shakespeare's poetry, the history of the sonnet and its structure, the sequencing of Shakespeare's sonnets, and their composition and publication dates. We then look closely at the emotional worlds depicted in three selected sonnets-worlds that range from ecstatic joy to profound disgust. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the much-debated question of whether Shakespeare's sonnets are autobiographical. Key terms introduced in this chapter include speaker, addressee, octave, sestet, volta, couplets, couplet ties, chiasmus, and parallelism.
Details
- Title
- Emotions in Shakespeare's Sonnets: "Past Reason Hunted"
- Creators
- Aidan Coleman - Southern Cross University
- Publication Details
- Shakespeare for Everyone: The Emotional Worlds of Shakespeare’s Works, pp.153-164
- Publisher
- Routledge; London
- Edition
- 1st
- Identifiers
- 991013257063602368
- Copyright
- © 2025 Lucy Potter
- Academic Unit
- Faculty of Education
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Book chapter