Book 4

Shakespeare's Poems

by Stephen Orgel

Published 1 December 1999
Shakespeare has never been more ubiquitous, not only on the stage and in academic writing, but in film, video and the popular press. Shakespeare has, for more than two centuries, served as the central text for analysis and explication, the foundation of the western literary cannon, and the measure of literary excellence. Volume 4 in this 10-volume set covers Shakespeare's Poems and serves to indicate the enormous and continuing vitality of the enterprise, and the extent to which Shakespeare has become a metonym for literary and artistic endeavour generally.