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Join two of the world’s foremost Shakespeare scholars for a lecture and conversation about the some of the Bard’s most beloved, mysterious, and satisfying works—his sonnets.
Shakespeare wrote sonnets for both personal and professional reasons, and taken into consideration together—as Edmondson and Wells do in their new volume, All the Sonnets of Shakespeare—the poems encompass a sustained and fascinating mediation on love, ambition, time, sexuality, mortality, Shakespeare’s own career as a playwright, and more. In this lecture and discussion, participants learn how the sonnets were composed; what they reveal about their author; and how they fit into, and inform, Shakespeare’s larger body of work.
Participants are encouraged to read sonnets 20 and 138 prior to the class.
This program will be recorded and available for later viewing by all who register.
Purchase All the Sonnets of Shakespeare.
Programs taking place online:An access link will be emailed to you after purchase.
Programs taking place in our NYC facilities:Please read our safety guidelines before visiting our building.
Programs taking place online and in our NYC facilities:Please select which experience you wish to participate in when registering. Online participants will be emailed an access link after purchase. In-person participants should read our safety guidelines before attending the program.
Paul Edmondson is Head of Research and Knowledge and Director of the Stratford-upon-Avon Poetry Festival for the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust …
Paul Edmondson is Head of Research and Knowledge and Director of the Stratford-upon-Avon Poetry Festival for the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. He is the author, co-author, and co-editor of many books and articles about Shakespeare, including Shakespeare’s Sonnets (with Stanley Wells, 2004), Twelfth Night (2005), Shakespeare: Ideas in Profile (2015), and Shakespeare Beyond Doubt: Evidence, Argument, Controversy (2013) and The Shakespeare Circle: An Alternative Biography (2015) (both with Stanley Wells, Cambridge), Shakespeare’s Creative Legacies (with Peter Holbrook, 2016); Finding Shakespeare’s New Place: An Archaeological Biography (with Kevin Colls and William Mitchell, 2016), and New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity (with Ewan Fernie, 2018).
Professor Sir Stanley Wells, CBE, FRSL, is Honorary President of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust …
Professor Sir Stanley Wells, CBE, FRSL, is Honorary President of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. His many books include Shakespeare: For All Time (2002), Looking for Sex in Shakespeare (2004), Shakespeare & Co. (2006), Shakespeare, Sex, and Love (2010), and Great Shakespeare Actors (2015). He edited Shakespeare Survey for almost twenty years and is co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Stage (with Sarah Stanton, Cambridge, 2002), and The New Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare (with Margreta de Grazia, Cambridge, 2010). He is also the general editor of the Oxford and Penguin editions of Shakespeare.