Why Lyrics Last : Evolution, Cognition, and Shakespeare's Sonnets / Brian Boyd.
Boyd, Brian, author.
2012
PR2848 .B68 2012
Available Online

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Title Why Lyrics Last : Evolution, Cognition, and Shakespeare's Sonnets / Brian Boyd.
Author Boyd, Brian, author.
ISBN 9780674064843
DOI https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674064843
Published Cambridge, MA : : Harvard University Press, [2012]
Copyright ©2012
Language English
Language Note In English.
Description 1 online resource (240 p.)
Item Number 10.4159/harvard.9780674064843 doi
Call Number PR2848 .B68 2012
Dewey Decimal Classification 821/.3
Summary In Why Lyrics Last, the internationally acclaimed critic Brian Boyd turns an evolutionary lens on the subject of lyric verse. He finds that lyric making, though it presents no advantages for the species in terms of survival and reproduction, is "universal across cultures because it fits constraints of the human mind." An evolutionary perspective- especially when coupled with insights from aesthetics and literary history-has much to tell us about both verse and the lyrical impulse. Boyd places the writing of lyrical verse within the human disposition "to play with pattern," and in an extended example he uncovers the many patterns to be found within Shakespeare's Sonnets. Shakespeare's bid for readership is unlike that of any sonneteer before him: he deliberately avoids all narrative, choosing to maximize the openness of the lyric and demonstrating the power that verse can have when liberated of story. In eschewing narrative, Shakespeare plays freely with patterns of other kinds: words, images, sounds, structures; emotions and moods; argument and analogy; and natural rhythms, in daily, seasonal, and life cycles. In the originality of his stratagems, and in their sheer number and variety, both within and between sonnets, Shakespeare outdoes all competitors. A reading of the Sonnets informed by evolution is primed to attend to these complexities and better able to appreciate Shakespeare's remarkable gambit for immortal fame.
Access Note Access limited to authorized users.
System Details Note Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
Digital File Characteristics text file PDF
Source of Description Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 18. Sep 2023)
In E-BOOK GESAMTPAKET / COMPLETE PACKAGE 2012
E-BOOK PACKAGE ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE 2012
E-BOOK PAKET LINGUISTIK UND LITERATURWISSENSCHAFT 2012
HUP eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2013 (Canada)
Harvard University Press eBook Package Backlist 2000-2013
Available in Other Form print 9780674065642
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Frontmatter
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Lyrics Unlinked
1. Poetry, Pattern, and Attention
2. Lyric and Sonnet
3. A First Shakespeare Sonnet
From Sonnet to Sequence
4. Love
5. Love and Time
Beyond Love
6. Status
7. Death
Shake-speares Sonnets, 1609
8. Lyric and Narrative
Envoi
Notes. Bibliography. Index
Notes
Bibliography
Index

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