Chamber music : Elizabethan sonnet-sequences and the pleasure of criticism /

Despite the praises by Donald Cheney and A. Kent Hieatt printed on this volume's dust jacket, this reviewer had difficulty determining what audience (other than semioticians) Kuin had in mind. The author claims that this is a revisionist study of the sonnet cycles of Sidney, Spenser, and Shakespeare. He borrows the chapter titles from music (hence, the title) and acknowledges a considerable debt to Barthes, Riffaterre, and Derrida, among others. Therefore, the long passages of leaden, jargon-filled prose should not come as a surprise. Readers may also find chapters 7 and 11 frivolous or unreadable. This "admittedly odd book" (the author's own words) may find an audience among those devoted to semiotic reading of texts. However, since a growing number of English professors are confronted with an ever-increasing number of students who find Donne's "Holy Sonnet No. 14" (to cite only one example) incomprehensible gibberish, Kuin's finely spun arguments serve no purpose and hence have no relevance in the typical university classroom. Not a book for undergraduates. L. L. Bronson; emeritus, Central Michigan University