ABSTRACT
I have put the phrase in inverted commas, and I feel that each of the two members of it ought really to be so placed. What I mean is this: there is much in Shakespeare's sonnets which may be described, sometimes perhaps with confidence and sometimes perhaps only question-beggingly, as 'hyperbole', and which is often closely associated with something that, atfirst sight, may seem to resemble what, in other Renaissance poets, we are accustomed to call 'Platonism'. When, though, we look into the matter we find that what in Shakespeare too seems to be 'Platonism' is really inverted 'Platonism', 'Platonism' standing on its head.
