The Poems: Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, The Phoenix and the Turtle, The Passionate Pilgrim (The New Cambridge Shakespeare)

This is a fully annotated edition of all the poems that can now confidently be assigned to Shakespeare, excluding the Sonnets. It contains Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, The Phoenix and the Turtle, The Passionate Pilgrim, and A Lover's Complaint. John Roe's introduction to each poem examines the classical and Renaissance traditions behind the poetry and the conditions under which the poems were produced. The commentary demonstrates how in his management of formal rhetoric Shakespeare fashions a living language out of handbook oratory.

This second edition of Shakespeare's narrative poems contains a new introductory section on recent critical interpretations. Fully annotated, it includes all the poems which can be confidently assigned to Shakespeare, excluding the Sonnets. An updated reading list completes the edition.