Description
Book SynopsisIn 'Shakespearean Variations', Ralph McInerny takes the first lines of the sonnets and their end rhymes, and composes sonnets of his own. The formal structure of the sonnet has always provided a salutary discipline for the poet-iambic pentameter, te delicate symmetry of octet and sextet, the losing couplet which epitomizes the poem. The stamp that Shakespeare put upon the form, the themes of love and death, age and youth, loyalty and betrayal, have come to seem to adhere to the very form. The pleasure to be had form reading 'Shakespearean Variations' will vary with one's acquaintance with the originals buth should always turn one to the bard himself.
Trade Review"It's not fair that Ralph McInerny get to have so much fun. Borrowing the opening line of each of Shakespeare's sonnets, he runs off - in accurate Shakespearian form - a froth of parody, literary interpretation, comedy, and wisdom. All of McInerny is here: the philosopher from Notre Dame, the social commentator, the inveterate punster, the storyteller whose famous mystery novel proved his sharp eye for human foibles. Others abide our question - so how come Ralph McInerny alone get to be so free?" - J. Bottum, Books & Arts Editor, 'The Weekly Standard'
Table of Contentspreface, index
