Will not endear Heylin to academics, but does disperse some smoke while fanning the flames of this fiery debate.
The author of Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades (1991) and Bootleg: The Secret History of the Other Recording Industry (1995) concludes that an even more famous bard was both victim and beneficiary of “booklegging” when Shake-speares Sonnets appeared in 1609.
Heylin alludes frequently to his hero Dylan (“the Shakespeare of his day?”) and sees numerous correlations between the mysterious case of the Sonnets and the bootlegging of rock recordings. But he has also done his homework and presents in often frisky language some convincing answers to questions that have perplexed scholars for centuries. Did Shakespeare approve the publication of these intimate poems? Who was the “W.H.” of the dedication? Who were the real-life prototypes for the Dark Lady, the Fair Youth and the Rival Poet? Did he write those last two weak Cupid sonnets? Or “A Lover’s Complaint,” that long boring poem published with the Sonnets? Heylin demonstrates a scholar’s diligence and even makes a quick allusion to Jonathan Bate’s forthcoming Soul of the Age: A Biography of the Mind of William Shakespeare. But the author has come to bury, not praise most previous scholars and theorists, including venerable Shakespearean A.L. Rowse. Heylin is particularly disparaging about the work of Katherine Duncan-Jones, editor of Arden’s 1997 edition of Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Only near the end does he credit Duncan-Jones for being “the first modern academic” to recognize that the 108 “Fair Youth” sonnets are “a sequence unto themselves.” Heylin’s primary complaint about most of the experts is their determination to make what few facts there are conform to preconceptions—e.g., that Shakespeare could not have been bisexual. The author nominates minor poet John Davies as the most likely candidate to have snitched the sonnets and composed “A Lover’s Complaint.”
Will not endear Heylin to academics, but does disperse some smoke while fanning the flames of this fiery debate.Pub Date: June 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-306-81805-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Da Capo
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2009
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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