自一六○九年莎士比亞的首本14行詩集「情人的悲歎」問世後，14行詩體就成為當時寫詩流行的風潮，誇大的讚美、近乎崇拜的愛慕之思都是14行詩的特色，而莎士比亞更以他豐富的想像力、敏銳的感受以及他的戲劇天才，將14行詩推向極致，內容不僅談到友情及男女之間的衝突、懸憂珍貴友誼好景難常，更有對於青春易逝的悲歎。本書收錄了莎士比亞150多首十四行詩，內容包羅萬象，顯然是事實與想像的交織，究竟有多少是詩人的情感經歷？又有多少是詩人的眼睛馳騁於上天下地的產物？值得讀者細細去體會。
This is the first edition of Shakespeare's sonnets and other poems to be developed by and for the RSC, the world's leading theater company, and it includes unique material to help the reader understand and enjoy Shakespeare. It features: outstanding on-page notes which explain words and phrases unfamiliar to a modern audience, including the slang, political references and bawdy humor often ignored or censored in competing editions; completely new introduction by Jonathan Bate, exploring the text and critical debates around it; and, clear, easy-to-read page design, with a single sonnet to each page.Developed in conjunction with the Royal Shakespeare Company, this fresh edition of Shakespeare's sonnets and other poems offers a completely new introduction from renowned scholar Jonathan Bate, outstanding on-page explanatory notes and a clear, easy-to-read design.

作者簡介：

About the Author

JONATHAN BATE is Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature, University of Warwick, UK, and the editor of The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works. He has held visiting posts at Harvard, Yale and UCLA and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Fellow of the British Academy, an Honorary Fellow of St Catherine's College, Cambridge, and a Governor and Board member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. A prominent critic, award-winning biographer and broadcaster, he is the author of several books on Shakespeare, including The Genius of Shakespeare (Picador), which was praised by Sir Peter Hall, founder of the RSC, as "the best modern book on Shakespeare." In June 2006 he was awarded a CBE by HM The Queen 'for services to Higher Education'. ERIC RASMUSSEN is Professor of English at the University of Nevada, USA, and the Textual Editor of The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works. He is co-editor of the Norton Anthology of English Renaissance Drama and has edited volumes in both the Arden Shakespeare and Oxford World's Classics series. He is the General Textual Editor of the Internet Shakespeare Editions project - one of the most visited Shakespeare websites in the world. For over nine years he has written the annual review of editions and textual studies for the Shakespeare Survey.