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Shakespeares sonnets are the greatest single work of lyric poetry in English, as passionate and daring as any love poems we may ever encounter, and yet, they are often misunderstood. Ideas of Order A Close Reading of Shakespeares Sonnets reveals an underlying structure within the 154 poems that illuminates the entire work, and provides a guidefor first-time readers as well as scholarsthat inspires a new understanding of this complex masterpiece. Elizabethan scholar and former Harvard University president Neil L. Rudenstine makes a compelling case for the existence of a dramatic arc within the work through an expert interpretation of distinct groups of sonnets in relationship to one another. The sonnets show us a poet in turmoil whose love for a young manwho returns his affectionsis utterly transformative, binding him in such an irresistible way that it survives a number of infidelities.