Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-2n9c9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-14T12:13:34.451Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Hermeneutics versus Erotics: Shakespeare's Sonnets and Interpretive History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Adena Rosmarin
Adena Rosmarin*
Affiliation:
University of Miami Coral Gables, Florida
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Shakespeare's sonnets are designed to seem written by a poet and spoken by a lover. This conspicuous ambidexterity, compounded by our declining tolerance for such deftness, has made them infamously problematic. They simultaneously flaunt and flout the correspondence between the lover's pen and his heart, between the artifice of his “rhetoric,” characteristic of much Tudor literature, and the rhetoric of his sincerity, characteristic of the Romantic poetics that has proven their sternest judge. The sonnets thus pose internally the very problem that informs their extensive interpretive history. But they also propose its solution: their sustained balance of verba and res, of verbally erotic and hermeneutically chaste designs, exalts the conflict of these designs, displaying its poetic power. And this paradoxical resolution of the poet's dilemma solves the critic's as well: it suggests a way of making a richly correspondent and yet reasoned sense of the sonnets and, indeed, of any literary text.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 100 , Issue 1 , January 1985, pp. 20 - 37
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1985

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Works Cited

Altman, Joel B. The Tudor Play of Mind: Rhetorical Inquiry and the Development of Elizabethan Drama. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1978.Google Scholar
Bacon, Francis. The Advancement of Learning. Ed. Johnston, Arthur. In The Advancement of Learning and New Atlantis. Oxford: Clarendon, 1974, 1–212.Google Scholar
Baldwin, T. W. William Shakspere's Small Latine and Lesse Greeke. 2 vols. Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1944.Google Scholar
Booth, Stephen. An Essay on Shakespeare's Sonnets. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1969.Google Scholar
Booth, Stephen, ed. Shakespeare's Sonnets. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1977.Google Scholar
Browning, Robert. The Works of Robert Browning. Ed. Kenyon, F. G. 10 vols. London: Smith, Elder, 1912.Google Scholar
Burckhardt, Sigurd. “The Poet as Fool and Priest: A Discourse on Method.” ELH 23 (1956): 279–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burke, Kenneth. “Definition of Man.” Hudson Review 16 (1963–64): 491–514; rpt. in his Language as Symbolic Action 3–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burke, Kenneth. Language as Symbolic Action: Essays on Life, Literature, and Method. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1966.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burke, Kenneth. “Terministic Screens.” In Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Assoc. 39. 1965; rpt. in his Language as Symbolic Action 44–62.Google Scholar
Carlyle, Thomas. Heroes and Hero Worship. 26 vols. Centennial Memorial ed. Boston: Estes, n.d.Google Scholar
Coleridge, Samuel. Biographia Literaria. Ed. Shawcross, J. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1907.Google Scholar
Coleridge, Samuel. Marginalia 1. Ed. Whalley, George. Vol. 12 of The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1980.Google Scholar
Coleridge, Samuel. The Table Talk and Omniana of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Ed. Ashe, T. London: Bell, 1888.Google Scholar
Cope, Jackson I. The Metaphoric Structure of Paradise Lost. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1962.Google Scholar
Crane, William G. Wit and Rhetoric in the Renaissance: The Formal Basis of Elizabethan Prose Style. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1937.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eliot, T. S. On Poetry and Poets. New York: Farrar, 1957.Google Scholar
Eliot, T. S. “Poetry and Drama.” In his On Poetry 75–95.Google Scholar
Eliot, T. S. “The Three Voices of Poetry.” In his On Poetry 96–112.Google Scholar
Eliot, T. S. The Waste Land. In The Complete Poems and Plays: 1909–1950. New York: Harcourt, 1952, 37–55.Google Scholar
Eliot, T. S. “What Is a Classic?” In his On Poetry 52–74.Google Scholar
Erasmus, Desiderius. De Duplici Copia Verborum ac Rerum. Trans. Knott, Betty I. In the Collected Works of Erasmus. Ed. Thompson, Craig R. Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1978, 24: 279–659.Google Scholar
Ferry, Anne. All in War with Time: Love Poetry of Shakespeare, Donne, Jonson, Marvell. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1975.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. Les Mots et les choses. Paris: Gallimard, 1966.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. New York: Random, 1970.Google Scholar
Frank, Joseph. “Spatial Form in Modern Literature.” Sewanee Review 53 (1945): 221–40, 433–56, 643–53; rev. and rpt. in his The Widening Gyre: Crisis and Mastery in Modern Literature. New Brunswick: Rutgers Univ. Press, 1963, 3–62.Google Scholar
Gombrich, E. H. Art and Illusion: A Study of the Psychology of Pictorial Representation. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1960.Google Scholar
Greene, Thomas M. “Anti-hermeneutics: The Case of Shakespeare's Sonnet 129.” In Poetic Traditions of the English Renaissance. Ed. Mack, Maynard and Lord, George deForest. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1982, 143–61.Google Scholar
Greville, Fulke, Brooke, Baron. “A Treatie of Humane Learning.” In Poems and Dramas of Fulke Greville. Ed. Bullough, Geoffrey. 2 vols. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1945, 1: 154–91.Google Scholar
Hallam, Henry. Introduction to the Literature of Europe. 2 vols. New York: Harper, 1848.Google Scholar
Heine, Heinrich. Sämmtliche Werke. 23 vols. Hamburg: Hoffman and Campe, 1876.Google Scholar
Herrnstein, Barbara, ed. Discussions of Shakespeare's Sonnets. Boston: Heath, 1964.Google Scholar
Hirsch, E. D. Jr. Validity in Interpretation. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1967.Google Scholar
Horace. Ars Poetica. In Horace: Satires, Epistles, and Ars Poetica. Trans. Fairclough, H. Rushton. New York: Putnam's, 1926.Google Scholar
Howell, A. C. “‘Res et Verba’: Words and Things.” ELH 13 (1946): 131–42.10.2307/2871594CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hubler, Edward. The Sense of Shakespeare's Sonnets. New York: Hill, 1964.Google Scholar
James, I. Ane Schort Treatise. In Smith 1: 208–25.Google Scholar
Johnson, Barbara. “Nothing Fails like Success.” SCE Reports 8 (1980): 3–16.Google Scholar
Johnson, Samuel. “Preface to Shakespeare.” In Johnson on Shakespeare. Vol. 7 of The Yale Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson. Ed. Sherbo, Arthur. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1968, 59–113.Google Scholar
Jonson, Ben. Timber; or, Discoveries. In Ben Jonson's Literary Criticism. Ed. James D. Redwine, Jr. Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1970, 3–41.Google Scholar
Joseph, Miriam. Shakespeare's Use of the Arts of Language. New York: Hafner, 1966.Google Scholar
Keats, John. Letter to John Hamilton Reynolds, 3 Feb. 1818. In The Letters of John Keats. Ed. Rollins, Hyder Edward. 2 vols. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1958, 1: 223–25.Google Scholar
Kittredge, George Lyman, ed. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Boston: Ginn, 1936.Google Scholar
Knapp, Stephen, and Michaels, Walter Benn. “Against Theory.” Critical Inquiry 8 (1982): 723–42.10.1086/448178CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knights, L. C. “Revaluations (V): Shakespeare's Sonnets.” Scrutiny 3 (1934): 133–60.Google Scholar
Krieger, Murray. “Poetic Presence and Illusion: Renaissance Theory and the Duplicity of Metaphor.” Critical Inquiry 5 (1979): 597–619.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krieger, Murray. A Window to Criticism: Shakespeare's Sonnets and Modern Poetics. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1964.Google Scholar
Lanham, Richard A. The Motives of Eloquence: Literary Rhetoric in the Renaissance. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1976.Google Scholar
Levao, Ronald. “Sidney's Feigned Apology.” PMLA 94 (1979): 223–33.Google Scholar
Lewis, C. S. English Literature in the Sixteenth Century excluding Drama. Oxford: Clarendon, 1964.Google Scholar
Mailloux, Steven. “Truth or Consequences: On Being against Theory.” Critical Inquiry 9 (1983): 760–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCanles, Michael. “The Authentic Discourse of the Renaissance.” Diacritics 10 (1980): 77–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meyer, Leonard B. “Grammatical Simplicity and Relational Richness: The Trio of Mozart's G Minor Symphony.” Critical Inquiry 2 (1976): 693–761.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, W. J. T. “Spatial Form in Literature: Toward a General Theory.” Critical Inquiry 6 (1980): 539–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muir, Kenneth. “Shakespeare and Rhetoric.” Shakespeare-Jahrbuch 90 (1952): 49–68.Google Scholar
Muir, Kenneth. Shakespeare's Sonnets. London: Allen, 1979.Google Scholar
Muir, Kenneth. “The Uncomic Pun.” Cambridge Journal May 1950, 472–85.Google Scholar
Nietzsche, Friedrich. Morgenröthe. In Nietzsche Werke. Berlin: Gruyter, 1971, pt. 5, Vol. 1, pp. 1–335.Google Scholar
Ong, Walter J. Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1958.Google Scholar
Perelman, Chaim, and Olbrechts-Tyteca, L. The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation. Trans. Wilkinson, John and Weaver, Purcell. Notre Dame: Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1969.Google Scholar
Perkins, David. Wordsworth and the Poetry of Sincerity. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1964.Google Scholar
Petrarch. Petrarch's Lyric Poems: The Rime Sparse and Other Lyrics. Ed. and trans. Robert M. Durling. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1976.Google Scholar
Plato. Phaedrus. In the Dialogues of Plato. Trans. Jowett, Benjamin. 4th ed. Oxford: Clarendon, 1953, 107–89.Google Scholar
Puttenham, George. The Arte of English Poesie. Ed. Doidge Willcock, Gladys and Walker, Alice. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1936.Google Scholar
Quintilian. Institutio Oratorio. Trans. Butler, H. E. 4 vols. New York: Putnam's, 1921.Google Scholar
Rader, Ralph W. “Defoe, Richardson, Joyce, and the Concept of Form in the Novel.” In Autobiography, Biography, and the Novel. By William Matthews and Ralph W. Rader. Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 1973, 31–72.Google Scholar
Ramsey, Paul. The Fickle Glass: A Study of Shakespeare's Sonnets. New York: AMS, 1979.Google Scholar
Ransom, John Crowe. “Shakespeare at Sonnets.” Southern Review 4 (1938): 531–53; rpt. in his The World's Body. New York: Scribners, 1938, 270–303.Google Scholar
Robinson, Forrest G. The Shape of Things Known: Sidney's Apology in Its Philosophic Tradition. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1972.Google Scholar
Rollins, Hyder Edward, ed. A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare: The Sonnets. 2 vols. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1944.Google Scholar
Rorty, Richard. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1979.Google Scholar
Rorty, Richard. “Philosophy as a Kind of Writing: An Essay on Derrida.” New Literary History 10 (1978–79): 141–60; rpt. in his Consequences of Pragmatism: Essays 1972–1980. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1982, 90–109.10.2307/468309CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosmarin, Adena. “‘Misreading’ Emma: The Powers and Perfidies of Interpretive History.” ELH 51 (1984): 315–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosmarin, Adena. “On the Theory of ‘Against Theory.‘” Critical Inquiry 9 (1983): 775–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rowse, A. L. Shakespeare's Sonnets: The Problems Solved. London: Macmillan, 1964.Google Scholar
Shakespeare, William. Sonnets. In Shakespeare's Sonnets. Ed. Booth, Stephen. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1977, 1–133.Google Scholar
Sidney, Sir Philip. Astrophil and Stella. In The Poems of Sir Philip Sidney. Ed. William A. Ringler, Jr. Oxford: Clarendon, 1962, 165–237.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sloan, Thomas O. “The Crossing of Rhetoric and Poetry in the English Renaissance.” In The Rhetoric of Renaissance Poetry. Ed. Sloan, Thomas O. and Waddington, Raymond B. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1974, 212–42.Google Scholar
Smith, G. Gregory, ed. Elizabethan Critical Essays. 2 vols. London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1904.Google Scholar
Snow, Edward A. “Loves of Comfort and Despair: A Reading of Shakespeare's Sonnet 138.” ELH 47 (1980): 462–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sontag, Susan. Against Interpretation. New York: Farrar, 1966.Google Scholar
Tuve, Rosamond. Elizabethan and Metaphysical Imagery: Renaissance Poetic and Twentieth-Century Critics. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1947.Google Scholar
Vaihinger, Hans. The Philosophy of “As If”: A System of the Theoretical, Practical and Religious Fictions of Mankind. Trans. Ogden, C. K. London: Routledge, 1924.Google Scholar
Weinberg, Bernard. A History of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance. 2 vols. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1961.Google Scholar
Wilson, Thomas. The Arte of Rhetorique. Facsim. of Cambridge Univ. Library copy. Shelf mark: W. 37. New York: Da Capo, 1969.Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Trans. Pears, D. F. and McGuinness, B. F. London: Routledge, 1961.Google Scholar
Wordsworth, William. The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth. Ed. de Selincourt, E. and Darbishire, Helen. 5 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1946.Google Scholar
Wordsworth, William. “Preface to the Second Edition of Lyrical Ballads.” In The Prose Works of William Wordsworth. Ed. Owen, W. J. B. and Smyser, Jane Worthington. 3 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1974, 1: 118–59.Google Scholar
Yeats, William Butler. “Sailing to Byzantium.” In The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats. New York: Macmillan, 1957, 191–92.Google Scholar