Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction
Section 1 : "This powerful rhyme"
1. Mirrors of courtesy
2. Educating the courtier
3. Love, or literary credential?
4. In the shadow of abundance
5. Dedicated words
6. He that buys must sell
7. Thy true-telling friend
8. From form to feeling
Section 2 : "A man right fair"
9. Before homosexuality
10. The king loved him well
11. Marriages and men
12. "Eternal lines" : marriage or poetry?
13. "Being your slave"
14. Friendship and its flatteries
15. But did they have sex?
Section 3 : "A woman coloured ill"
16. Gynerasty
17. Saucy jacks
18. Weaker vessels
19. A reproach of their own
20. The black mistress : a Renaissance common place
21. More perjured I?
22. "The expense of spirit"
23. Fair is foul
24. Sonnet 20 : a reprise
Section 4 : "So long lives this"
25. The sonnets today
26. From "sweet boy" to "sweet love"
27. "Piteous constraint to read such stuff"
28. A lover and a man
29. The science of sonnets
30. Wilde sonnets
31. Love poetry at last
Coda : Universal Shakespeare?
Notes
Bibliography
Index.