THE RIDDLE OF SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS

For two hundred years or more, many fine literary minds have attempted to solve the riddle of Shakespeare's sonnets which involves four points: when did Shakespeare (or another person of the same name) write them? who is the mysterious Mr. W.H. to whom they were dedicated? who is the ""Dark Lady"" and who the ""rival poet"" so frequently referred to in the poems. Then there is the always absorbing question of Shakespeare's possible homosexuality. Hubler is well qualified as an editor, having already written The Sense of Shakespeare's Sonnets which clarified them by placing their themes and attitudes against both the traditions of Shakespeare's times and his use of them in his plays. It is an eminently sensible approach, repeated in the brilliant introduction to this volume. Northrop Frye, Leslie Fiedler, Stephen Spender and R.P. Blackmur contribute four of the essays here and they will delight academicians. There is a delightful, playful piece which is perhaps the best reading in the book, except for the inclusion at the end of the whole sonnet sequence itself. Innumerable persons of great genius have been ""playing the game"" and as usual Wilson Knight seems to have the best understanding of the psycho-sexual duality in all creative writers...A provocative and rewarding symposium.