ABSTRACT
First published in 1961.
This study analyses Shakespeare's treatment of the universal themes of Beauty, Love and Time. He compares Shakespeare with other great poets and sonnet writers - Pindar, Horace and Ovid, with Petrarch, Tasso and Ronsart, with Shakespeare's own English predecessors and contemporaries, notably Spenser, Daniel and Drayton and with John Donne.
By discussing their resemblances and differences, a not altogether orthodox picture of Shakespeare's attitude to life is presented, which suggests that he was not as phlegmatic and equable a person as critics have often supposed.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part I|67 pages
Poetry As Immortalisation From Pindar To Shakespeare
part |54 pages
II Devouring Time and Fading Beauty From The Greek Anthology To Shakespeare
part III|85 pages
‘Hyperbole' and ‘Religiousness' In Shakespeare's Expressions of His Love