Loving by Will ... by Timothy Adès

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​Publication details: 
First Edition 30th November 2016
ISBN: 978-1-907435-35-5
Paperback
166 pages
​W157mm x H 236mm

In this unusual book of William Shakespeare's 154 Sunbursts: (his sonnets to 'Mr W. H.') LOVING BY WILL presents  the  Bard of Avon's sonnet record of his troubled love-life in parallel with Timothy's lipogrammatic versions of the poems - Timothy has forbidden himself the use of words containing the letter 'e' for this book and as 'e' is the most common letter in the English language, this constraint has created some interesting and  enlightening lines of poetry. This is a book that automatically extends the reader's vocabulary! Tim writes lipogrammatically of his book:
This is Will of Stratford's own amorous autobiography: it's vivid, vibrant, and finally shocking. Up to now, only scholars could gain much insight, could know and study him with such intimacy. But with this book in hand, anybody can follow our world champion playwright on his calamitous downward path.

It all starts so promisingly. You don't think anything can possibly go wrong...

​About Lipograms -
lipogrammatically, of course!
Lipograms go back to antiquity. A man from Aranda had his way with your blind bard's Iliad - fall of Troy and all that - writing its first book without an alpha, and so on, going straight through. Tryphiodorus did as much for that strong and crafty man on his way to Ithaca, who slid past Scylla and Charybdis, spikily fooling a Cyclops and slothfully frolicking with Calypso, and finally caught up with his son and his missus again. Mr. Isaac D-- had a similar habit - his son was Victoria's most flamboyant politician. La Disparition is a whodunit by a Parisian with big hair and a cat, skilfully brought to us from Calais by a translator as A Void. Oulipo is a group of lipogrammatists: this curious word is short for 'Workshop of Writing Possibility'. Lipo-is from Plato's word for omit (not his similar word for fat, as in liposuction). I could go on... 

Loving by Will includes all of William Shakespeare's original sonnets 'To Mr W.H.' and an index of their first lines. Timothy's lipogrammatic translations are presented in parallel with the originals and his summarising headings make this book not only a lot of fun (for the reader as well as the poet!) but also a useful study guide to the 'Dark Lady' Sonnets.
Other poets translated by Timothy Adès, rhyming poet-translator, mostly from French, include Jean Cassou; Victor Hugo; Robert Desnos and Alberto Arvelo Torrealba. This is his first book in Inglish!

There probably won't be an e-book of this!