Shakespeare the Reviser - A Lover''s Complaint

Shakespeare as a reviser of others' work is an area of growing scholarly interest. Marina Tarlinskaya draws a formal distinction between editing, revision, and rewriting. The poem A Lover's Complaint serves as an example of revision. Based on linguistic-statistical analysis, Tarlinskaya suggests that Shakespeare needed a poem to round off his 1609 sonnet sequence and, having neither the time nor the inclination to compose one from scratch, he revised an earlier work from the 1590s by a now-forgotten author, adding vocabulary characteristic of his later plays.

About the author

Marina Tarlinskaja is Professor Emerita in the Department of Linguistics at University of Washington.

Product details

• Authors: Marina Tarlinskaya
• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 23.09.2025, delayed
• EAN: 9781526193278
• ISBN: 978-1-5261-9327-8
• No. of pages: 296
• Subjects: Fiction > Poetry, drama > Drama; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; Linguistics, LITERARY CRITICISM / Shakespeare, Literary studies: c 1600 to c 1800, Shakespeare Studies & Criticism, Literary studies: poetry and poets, Shakespeare Plays, Literary studies: plays and playwrights, POETRY / Shakespeare, Poetry by form: Sonnet, Literary studies: c 1400 to c 1600, Relating to Shakespeare / Shakespearean, Language and Linguistics, Poetry / poems by form or style: Sonnet