Bottom

"Written between 1947 and 1960 and first published in 1963, the prose work in the first of these two volumes reflects Louis Zukofsky's ongoing obsession with Shakespeare - whose plays he had first seen performed in Yiddish - and is central to understanding Zukofsky's work. Tracing the themes of knowledge, love and physical vision ("the eyes have it") through both Shakespeare's plays and the poetry, Bottom: On Shakespeare is more than a compendious act of homage by one poet to another. In effect, it lays out Zukofsky's poetics and theory of knowledge on a grand scale, tracing his themes…