Guest Lecture Prof. Dr. Roland Weidle: A comprehensive guide to Shakespeare’s sonnets

As part of this semester’s class on the transformations of the sonnet from the Shakespearean Renaissance to transcultural and queer appropriations the form, Roland Weidle from Ruhr-Universität Bochum is going to join us to talk about his recent book, A Comprehensive Guide to Shakespeare’s Sonnets, which came out with Bloomsbury Publishing in 2025. This book provides students with the tools to unravel the complexities of one of the most difficult sonnet sequences, introducing them to the literary tradition, themes, stylistic features and cultural contexts of the genre. It thus enables readers not only to disentangle the complex relationships of the poems’ characters but also to appreciate their philosophical, sensual, topical and subversive qualities.