Series PrefaceNotes on ContributorsAcknowledgementsCopyright AcknowledgementsIntroduction - Hannah Crawforth, Elizabeth Scott-Baumann and Clare Whitehead Part One: The Sonnets and History1. Promising Eternitiy in the 1609 Quarto - Cathy Shrank2.Thomas Thorpe's Shakespeare: 'The Only Begetter' - Lynne Magnusson 3. 'Our brains beguiled': Ecclesiastes and Sonnet 59's Poetics of Temporal Instability - Kristine Johanson4. Unfulfilled Imperatives in Shakespeare's Sonnets - John RoePart Two: The Sonnets in Context 5. Shakespeare's Sonnets as Event - Colin Burrow6. A Lingering Farewell: Sonnet 87 - Ann Thompson7. Enduring 'Injurious Time': Alternatives to Immortality and Proleptic Loss in Shakespeare's Sonnets - J.K. Barret8. 'Thou single wilt prove none': Counting, Succession, and Identity in Shakespeare's Sonnets - Shankar RamanPart 3: Afterlives of the Sonnets9. Desire is Pattern - Matthew Harrison10. Regifting Some Shakespeare Sonnets of Late - Jonathan F.S. Post11. The Scar on the Face: Ted Hughes Reads Shakespeare's Sonnets - Reiko Oya12. Shakespeare's Sonnets in the Undergraduate Classroom - Daniel MossAfterword - Heather DubrowIndex

An exemplary volume, ideal for classroom use and filled with suggestive pointers toward new directions in scholarship on the sonnets by a well-balanced assembly of leading scholars. The volume’s subtitle could not be more apt, in that the essays collectively exhibit both the “state” of methodologies in circulation and the “play” therein that finds new ways of navigating the literary corpus. The editors’ lucid introduction is ideally paired with Heather Dubrow’s afterword, which points up the individual and collective merits of the contributions with laser-like precision.

Each volume in the series is an expedition to discover the ‘state of play’ with respect to Shakespeare’s major plays. Featuring ten or more newly commissioned essays written by world-class Shakespeareans, each volume presents a detailed engagement with a single play, focusing on current issues in teaching, performance and research.