PREFACE The first part divides into three chapters,and establishes the critical foundation for viewing the volume topic,examining Shakespeare's role in the development of English poetry',his use of 'rhetoric,style,and poetic form',and the media of'print and manuscript'that allowed his poetry to take its distinctive shape.These chapters suggest a range of cultural venues and contexts for witnessing how Shakespeare's poetry derives from,and responds to,the primary energies of the Renaissance,in Europe as in England. The second part of the companion consists of five chapters on individual poems and ancillary volumes of published poetry,with one chapter each on Venus and Adonis,The Rape of Lucrece,the Sonnets,and A Lover's Complaint,and a combined chapter on the two works taught less often: The Passionate Pilgrim and The Phoenix and Turtle'.These chapters aim to orient readers to the poems and to the critical conversation about them,and (where relevant)to apply the material from the first part of the companion. Finally,the third part consists of six chapters that seek to widen the topic of 'Shakespeare's poetry'.The first three chapters introduce important topics,contexts,and methodologies,attending to 'politics and religion', to love,beauty,and sexuality',and to the recurrent 'classicism'in Shakespeare's poems (especially Virgil and Ovid).The next two chapters each produce a different critical model for relating the poems to the plays, the poetical to the theatrical:the first on Shakespeare's use of 'poetry in the plays';the second on the connection between 'poetry and performance'. A concluding chapter treats the afterlife of Shakespeare's poems-their reception and influence'. The word 'poetry'in the volume title is deliberately open-ended,evoking Shakespeare's poems and simultaneously calling attention to the poetical as a major tool and concept in the Shakespearean craft,in plays as in poems,for the stage as for the page.Thus individual chapters focus on the poems but layer in commentary on the plays when relevant or possible. xiiThe first part divides into three chapters, and establishes the critical foundation for viewing the volume topic, examining Shakespeare’s role in ‘the development of English poetry’, his use of ‘rhetoric, style, and poetic form’, and the media of ‘print and manuscript’ that allowed his poetry to take its distinctive shape. These chapters suggest a range of cultural venues and contexts for witnessing how Shakespeare’s poetry derives from, and responds to, the primary energies of the Renaissance, in Europe as in England. The second part of the companion consists of five chapters on individual poems and ancillary volumes of published poetry, with one chapter each on Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, the Sonnets, and A Lover’s Complaint, and a combined chapter on the two works taught less often: The Passionate Pilgrim and ‘The Phoenix and Turtle’. These chapters aim to orient readers to the poems and to the critical conversation about them, and (where relevant) to apply the material from the first part of the companion. Finally, the third part consists of six chapters that seek to widen the topic of ‘Shakespeare’s poetry’. The first three chapters introduce important topics, contexts, and methodologies, attending to ‘politics and religion’, to ‘love, beauty, and sexuality’, and to the recurrent ‘classicism’ in Shakespeare’s poems (especially Virgil and Ovid). The next two chapters each produce a different critical model for relating the poems to the plays, the poetical to the theatrical: the first on Shakespeare’s use of ‘poetry in the plays’; the second on the connection between ‘poetry and performance’. A concluding chapter treats the afterlife of Shakespeare’s poems – their ‘reception and influence’. The word ‘poetry’ in the volume title is deliberately open-ended, evoking Shakespeare’s poems and simultaneously calling attention to the poetical as a major tool and concept in the Shakespearean craft, in plays as in poems, for the stage as for the page. Thus individual chapters focus on the poems but layer in commentary on the plays when relevant or possible. PREFACE xii