Shakespeare's sonnets
Encyclopedia
Shakespeare's sonnets are 154 poems in sonnet
form written by William Shakespeare
, dealing with themes such as the passage of time, love, beauty and mortality. All but two of the poems were first published in a 1609 quarto entitled SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS.: Never before imprinted. Sonnets 138
and 144
had previously been published in a 1599 miscellany entitled The Passionate Pilgrim
. The quarto ends with "A Lover's Complaint
", a narrative poem of 47 seven-line stanzas written in rhyme royal
.
The first 17 sonnets, traditionally called the procreation sonnets
, are ostensibly written to a young man urging him to marry and have children in order to immortalise his beauty by passing it to the next generation. Other sonnets express the speaker's love for a young man; brood upon loneliness, death, and the transience of life; seem to criticise the young man for preferring a rival poet; express ambiguous feelings for the speaker's mistress; and pun on the poet's name. The final two sonnets are allegorical
treatments of Greek epigrams referring to the "little love-god" Cupid
.
The publisher, Thomas Thorpe
, entered the book in the Stationers' Register
on 20 May 1609:
Tho. Thorpe. Entred for his copie under the handes of master Wilson and master Lownes Wardenes a booke called Shakespeares sonnettes vjd.
Whether Thorpe used an authorised manuscript from Shakespeare or an unauthorised copy is unknown. George Eld
printed the quarto, and the run was divided between the booksellers William Aspley
and John Wright
.
The sonnets include a dedication to one "Mr. W.H.". The identity of this person remains a mystery and has provoked a great deal of speculation.
The dedication reads:
Given its obliquity, since the 19th century the dedication has become, in Colin Burrow's words, a "dank pit in which speculation wallows and founders". Don Foster concludes that the result of all the speculation has yielded only two "facts," which themselves have been the object of much debate: First, that the form of address (Mr.) suggests that W.H. was an untitled gentleman, and second, that W.H., whoever he was, is identified as "the only begetter" of Shakespeare's Sonnets (whatever the word "begetter" is taken to mean).
The initials 'T.T.' are taken to refer to the publisher, Thomas Thorpe, though Thorpe usually signed prefatory matter only if the author was out of the country or dead. Foster points out, however, that Thorpe's entire corpus of such consists of only four dedications and three stationer's prefaces. That Thorpe signed the dedication rather than the author is often read as evidence that he published the work without obtaining Shakespeare's permission.
The capital letters and periods following each word were probably intended to resemble an ancient Roman
lapidary inscription
or monumental brass
, thereby accentuating Shakespeare's declaration in Sonnet 55 that the work will confer immortality to the subjects of the work:
126 of Shakespeare's sonnets are addressed to a young man, often called the "Fair Youth." Broadly speaking, there are branches of theories concerning the identity of Mr. W.H.: those that take him to be identical to the youth, and those that assert him to be a separate person.
The following is a non-exhaustive list of contenders:
s) and a final couplet
composed in iambic pentameter
(a meter used extensively in Shakespeare's plays) with the rhyme
scheme abab cdcd efef gg (this form is now known as the Shakespearean sonnet). The only exceptions are Sonnets 99
, 126
, and 145
. Number 99 has fifteen lines. Number 126 consists of six couplets, and two blank lines marked with italic brackets; 145 is in iambic tetrameter
s, not pentameters. Often, the beginning of the third quatrain marks the volta ("turn"), or the line in which the mood of the poem shifts, and the poet expresses a revelation or epiphany.
There is another variation on the standard English structure, found for example in sonnet 29
. The normal rhyme scheme is changed by repeating the b of quatrain one in quatrain three where the f should be. This leaves the sonnet distinct between both Shakespearean and Spenserian styles.
Whether the author intended to step over the boundaries of the standard rhyme scheme will always be in question. Some, like Sir Denis Bray, find the repetition of the words and rhymes to be a "serious technical blemish", while others, like Kenneth Muir, think "the double use of 'state' as a rhyme may be justified, in order to bring out the stark contrast between the Poet's apparently outcast state and the state of joy described in the third quatrain." Given that this is the only sonnet in the collection that follows this pattern, it is hard to say if it was purposely done. But most of the poets at the time were well educated; "schooled to be sensitive to variations in sounds and word order that strike us today as remarkably, perhaps even excessively, subtle." Shakespeare must have been well aware of this subtle change to the firm structure of the English sonnets.
, have attempted to identify the characters with historical individuals.
-126
are addressed. Some commentators, noting the romantic and loving language used in this sequence of sonnets, have suggested a sexual relationship between them; others have read the relationship as platonic love
.
The earliest poems in the sequence recommend the benefits of marriage and children. With the famous sonnet 18
("Shall I compare thee to a summer's day") the tone changes dramatically towards romantic intimacy. Sonnet 20
explicitly laments that the young man is not a woman. Most of the subsequent sonnets describe the ups and downs of the relationship, culminating with an affair between the poet and the Dark Lady. The relationship seems to end when the Fair Youth succumbs to the Lady's charms.
There have been many attempts to identify the young man. Shakespeare's one-time patron, Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton
is commonly suggested, although Shakespeare's later patron, William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke
, has recently become popular. Both claims begin with the dedication of the sonnets to 'Mr. W.H.', "the only begetter of these ensuing sonnets"; the initials could apply to either earl. However, while Shakespeare's language often seems to imply that the subject is of higher social status than himself, the apparent references to the poet's inferiority may simply be part of the rhetoric of romantic submission. An alternative theory, most famously espoused by Oscar Wilde's short story 'The Portrait of Mr. W.H.' notes a series of puns that may suggest the sonnets are written to a boy actor called William Hughes
; however, Wilde's story acknowledges that there is no evidence for such a person's existence. Samuel Butler
believed that the friend was a seaman. Joseph Pequigney argued in his book Such Is My Love that the Fair Youth was an unknown commoner.
has been characterised as "bawdy" and is used to illustrate the difference between the spiritual love for the Fair Youth and the sexual love for the Dark Lady. The distinction is commonly made in the introduction to modern editions of the sonnets. The Dark Lady is so called because the poems make it clear that she has black hair and dusky skin. As with the Fair Youth, there have been many attempts to identify her with a real historical individual. Mary Fitton
, Emilia Lanier
and others have been suggested.
William Wordsworth
was unimpressed by these sonnets. He wrote that:
, George Chapman
, or, an amalgamation of several contemporaries. However, there is no hard evidence that the character had a real-life counterpart. The speaker sees the Rival as competition for fame, coin and patronage. The sonnets most commonly identified as the Rival Poet group exist within the Fair Youth sequence in sonnets 78
–86
.
or parody
of the three-centuries-old tradition of Petrarch
an love sonnets; Shakespeare consciously inverts conventional gender roles as delineated in Petrarchan sonnets to create a more complex and potentially troubling depiction of human love. He also violated many sonnet rules, which had been strictly obeyed by his fellow poets: he plays with gender roles (20
), he speaks on human evils that do not have to do with love (66
), he comments on political events (124
), he makes fun of love (128
), he speaks openly about sex (129
), he parodies beauty (130
), and even introduces witty pornography (151
).
could still credit John Milton
with the perfection of the English sonnet. As part of the renewed interest in Shakespeare's original work that accompanied Romanticism
, the sonnets rose steadily in reputation during the nineteenth century.
The cross-cultural importance and influence of the sonnets is demonstrated by the large number of translations that have been made of them. In the German-speaking countries alone, there have been 70 complete translations since 1784. There is no major written language into which the sonnets have not been translated, including Latin,, Japanese,Turkish,Esperanto, and Klingon.
Sonnet
A sonnet is one of several forms of poetry that originate in Europe, mainly Provence and Italy. A sonnet commonly has 14 lines. The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song" or "little sound"...
form written by William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
, dealing with themes such as the passage of time, love, beauty and mortality. All but two of the poems were first published in a 1609 quarto entitled SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS.: Never before imprinted. Sonnets 138
Sonnet 138
Sonnet 138 is one of the most famous of William Shakespeare's sonnets. Making use of frequent puns , it shows an understanding of the nature of truth and flattery in romantic relationships...
and 144
Sonnet 144
- Introduction :Sonnet 144 was published in the Passionate Pilgrim. Shortly before this, Francis Meres referred to Shakespeare's Sonnets in "his handbook of Elizabethan poetry, Palladis Tamia, or Wit's Treasurie, published in 1598," which was frequently talked about in the literary centers of...
had previously been published in a 1599 miscellany entitled The Passionate Pilgrim
The Passionate Pilgrim
The Passionate Pilgrim is an anthology of 20 poems that were attributed to "W. Shakespeare" on the title page, only five of which are accepted by present-day scholars as authentically Shakespearean.-Editions:...
. The quarto ends with "A Lover's Complaint
A Lover's Complaint
A Lover's Complaint is a narrative poem published as an appendix to the original edition of Shakespeare's sonnets. It is given the title 'A Lover's Complaint' in the book, which was published by Thomas Thorpe in 1609...
", a narrative poem of 47 seven-line stanzas written in rhyme royal
Rhyme royal
Rhyme royal is a rhyming stanza form that was introduced into English poetry by Geoffrey Chaucer.-Form:The rhyme royal stanza consists of seven lines, usually in iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme is a-b-a-b-b-c-c. In practice, the stanza can be constructed either as a terza rima and two couplets...
.
The first 17 sonnets, traditionally called the procreation sonnets
Procreation sonnets
The term procreation sonnets is a name given to Shakespearean sonnets numbers I to XVII .They are referred to as the procreation sonnets because they all argue that the young man to whom they are addressed should marry and father children, hence procreate...
, are ostensibly written to a young man urging him to marry and have children in order to immortalise his beauty by passing it to the next generation. Other sonnets express the speaker's love for a young man; brood upon loneliness, death, and the transience of life; seem to criticise the young man for preferring a rival poet; express ambiguous feelings for the speaker's mistress; and pun on the poet's name. The final two sonnets are allegorical
Allegory
Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...
treatments of Greek epigrams referring to the "little love-god" Cupid
Cupid
In Roman mythology, Cupid is the god of desire, affection and erotic love. He is the son of the goddess Venus and the god Mars. His Greek counterpart is Eros...
.
The publisher, Thomas Thorpe
Thomas Thorpe
Thomas Thorpe was an English publisher, most famous for publishing Shakespeare's sonnets and several works by Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson. His publication of the sonnets has long been controversial...
, entered the book in the Stationers' Register
Stationers' Register
The Stationers' Register was a record book maintained by the Stationers' Company of London. The company is a trade guild given a royal charter in 1557 to regulate the various professions associated with the publishing industry, including printers, bookbinders, booksellers, and publishers in England...
on 20 May 1609:
Tho. Thorpe. Entred for his copie under the handes of master Wilson and master Lownes Wardenes a booke called Shakespeares sonnettes vjd.
Whether Thorpe used an authorised manuscript from Shakespeare or an unauthorised copy is unknown. George Eld
George Eld
George Eld was a London printer of the Jacobean era, who produced important works of English Renaissance drama and literature, including key texts by William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, and Thomas Middleton....
printed the quarto, and the run was divided between the booksellers William Aspley
William Aspley
William Aspley was a London publisher of the Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Caroline eras. He was a member of the publishing syndicates that issued the First Folio and Second Folio collections of Shakespeare's plays, in 1623 and 1632.-Career:...
and John Wright
John Wright (bookseller)
John Wright was a major London publisher and bookseller and one of the two booksellers who sold Shakespeare's Sonnets in 1609. He also was a member of the syndicate that printed the Shakespeare First Folio in 1623...
.
Dedication
The dedication reads:
Given its obliquity, since the 19th century the dedication has become, in Colin Burrow's words, a "dank pit in which speculation wallows and founders". Don Foster concludes that the result of all the speculation has yielded only two "facts," which themselves have been the object of much debate: First, that the form of address (Mr.) suggests that W.H. was an untitled gentleman, and second, that W.H., whoever he was, is identified as "the only begetter" of Shakespeare's Sonnets (whatever the word "begetter" is taken to mean).
The initials 'T.T.' are taken to refer to the publisher, Thomas Thorpe, though Thorpe usually signed prefatory matter only if the author was out of the country or dead. Foster points out, however, that Thorpe's entire corpus of such consists of only four dedications and three stationer's prefaces. That Thorpe signed the dedication rather than the author is often read as evidence that he published the work without obtaining Shakespeare's permission.
The capital letters and periods following each word were probably intended to resemble an ancient Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
lapidary inscription
Lapidary
A lapidary is an artist or artisan who forms stone, mineral, gemstones, and other suitably durable materials into decorative items such as engraved gems, including cameos, or cabochons, and faceted designs...
or monumental brass
Monumental brass
Monumental brass is a species of engraved sepulchral memorial which in the early part of the 13th century began to partially take the place of three-dimensional monuments and effigies carved in stone or wood...
, thereby accentuating Shakespeare's declaration in Sonnet 55 that the work will confer immortality to the subjects of the work:
- Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
- Of princes shall outlive this pow'rful rhyme,
126 of Shakespeare's sonnets are addressed to a young man, often called the "Fair Youth." Broadly speaking, there are branches of theories concerning the identity of Mr. W.H.: those that take him to be identical to the youth, and those that assert him to be a separate person.
The following is a non-exhaustive list of contenders:
- William HerbertWilliam Herbert, 3rd Earl of PembrokeWilliam Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, KG, PC was the son of Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke and his third wife Mary Sidney. Chancellor of the University of Oxford, he founded Pembroke College, Oxford with King James. He was warden of the Forest of Dean, and constable of St Briavels from 1608...
(the Earl of PembrokeEarl of PembrokeEarl of Pembroke is a title created ten times, all in the Peerage of England. It was first created in the 12th century by King Stephen of England. The title is associated with Pembroke, Pembrokeshire in West Wales, which is the site of Earldom's original seat Pembroke Castle...
). Herbert is seen by many as the most likely candidate, since he was also the dedicatee of the First FolioFirst FolioMr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. is the 1623 published collection of William Shakespeare's plays. Modern scholars commonly refer to it as the First Folio....
of Shakespeare's works. However the "obsequious" Thorpe would be unlikely to have addressed a lord as "Mr". - Henry WriothesleyHenry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of SouthamptonHenry Wriothesley , 3rd Earl of Southampton , was the second son of Henry Wriothesley, 2nd Earl of Southampton, and his wife Mary Browne, Countess of Southampton, daughter of the 1st Viscount Montagu...
(the Earl of SouthamptonEarl of SouthamptonEarl of Southampton was a title that was created three times in the Peerage of England. The first creation came in 1537 in favour of the courtier William Fitzwilliam. He was childless and the title became extinct on his death in 1542. The second creation came in 1547 in favour of the politician...
). Many have argued that 'W.H.' is Southampton's initials reversed, and that he is a likely candidate as he was the dedicatee of Shakespeare's poems Venus & AdonisVenus and Adonis (Shakespeare poem)Venus and Adonis is a poem by William Shakespeare, written in 1592–1593, with a plot based on passages from Ovid's Metamorphoses. It is a complex, kaleidoscopic work, using constantly shifting tone and perspective to present contrasting views of the nature of love.-Publication:Venus and Adonis was...
and The Rape of LucreceThe Rape of LucreceThe Rape of Lucrece is a narrative poem by William Shakespeare about the legendary Lucretia. In his previous narrative poem, Venus and Adonis , Shakespeare had included a dedicatory letter to his patron, the Earl of Southampton, in which he promised to write a "graver work"...
. Southampton was also known for his good looks, and has often been argued to be the Fair Youth of the sonnets; however, the same reservations about "Mr." also apply here. - A simple printing error for Shakespeare's initials, 'W.S.' or 'W. Sh'. This was suggested by Bertrand RussellBertrand RussellBertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...
in his memoirs, and also by Foster and by Jonathan BateJonathan BateJonathan Bate CBE FBA FRSL is a British academic, biographer, critic, broadcaster, novelist and scholar of Shakespeare, Romanticism and Ecocriticism...
. Bate supports his point by reading 'onlie' as something like 'peerless', 'singular' and 'begetter' as 'maker', ie. 'writer'. Foster takes "onlie" to mean only one, which he argues eliminates any particular subject of the poems, since they are addressed to more than one person. The phrase 'Our Ever-Living Poet', according to Foster, refers to God, not Shakespeare. 'Poet' comes from the Greek 'poetes' which means 'maker', a fact remarked upon in various contemporary texts; also, in Elizabethan English the word 'maker' was used to mean 'poet'. These researcher believe the phrase 'our ever-living poet' might easily have been taken to mean 'our immortal maker' (God). The 'eternity' promised us by our immortal maker would then be the eternal life that is promised us by God, and the dedication would conform with the standard formula of the time, according to which one person wished another "happiness [in this life] and eternal bliss [in heaven]". Shakespeare himself, on this reading, is 'Mr. W. [S]H.' the 'onlie begetter', i.e., the sole author, of the sonnets, and the dedication is advertising the authenticity of the poems. - William Hall, a printer who had worked with Thorpe on other publications. According to this theory, the dedication is simply Thorpe's tribute to his colleague and has nothing to do with Shakespeare. This theory, originated by Sir Sidney Lee in his A Life of William Shakespeare (1898), was continued by Colonel B.R. Ward in his The Mystery of Mr. W.H. (1923), and has been endorsed recently by Brian VickersBrian VickersBrian Lee Vickers is a American NASCAR driver. He was the 2003 Busch Series champion, and at age 20, became the youngest champion in any of NASCAR's three top-tier series...
, who notes Thorpe uses such 'visual puns' elsewhere. Supporters of this theory point out that "ALL" following "MR. W. H." spells "MR. W. HALL" with the deletion of a period. Using his initials W.H., Hall had edited a collection of the poems of Robert Southwell that was printed by George EldGeorge EldGeorge Eld was a London printer of the Jacobean era, who produced important works of English Renaissance drama and literature, including key texts by William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, and Thomas Middleton....
, the same printer for the 1609 Sonnets. There is also documentary evidence of one William Hall of HackneyHackney (parish)Hackney was a parish in the historic county of Middlesex. The parish church of St John-at-Hackney was built in 1789, replacing the nearby former 16th century parish church dedicated to St Augustine . The original tower of that church was retained to hold the bells until the new church could be...
who signed himself 'WH' three years earlier, but it is uncertain if this was the printer. - Sir William HarveyBaron HerveyBaron Hervey is a title that has been created three times, once in the Peerage of Ireland and twice in the Peerage of England. The first creation came in the Peerage of Ireland in 1620 when William Hervey was made Baron Hervey, of Rosse in the County of Wexford. In 1628 he was also created Baron...
, Southampton's stepfather. This theory assumes that the Fair Youth and Mr. W.H. are separate people, and that Southampton is the Fair Youth. Harvey would be the "begetter" of the sonnets in the sense that it would be he who provided them to the publisher, after the death of Southampton's mother removed an obstacle to publication. The reservations about the use of "Mr." do not apply in the case of a knightKnightA knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....
. - William Himself (i.e., Shakespeare). This theory was proposed by the German scholar D. Barnstorff, but has found no support.
- William HaughtonWilliam HaughtonWilliam Haughton was an English playwright in the age of English Renaissance theatre. During the years 1597 to 1602 he collaborated in many plays with Henry Chettle, Thomas Dekker, John Day, Richard Hathwaye and Wentworth Smith....
, a contemporary dramatist. - William HartJoan ShakespeareJoan Shakespeare was the sister of William Shakespeare.Joan was Shakespeare's younger sister, named after her parents' deceased first-born child...
, Shakespeare's nephew and male heir. Proposed by Richard FarmerRichard FarmerDr Richard Farmer was a Shakespearean scholar and Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He is known for his Essay on the Learning of Shakespeare , in which he maintained that Shakespeare's knowledge of the classics was through translations, the errors of which he reproduced.-Life:He was born at...
, but Hart was nine years of age at the time of publication, and this suggestion is regarded as unlikely. - William Hatcliffe of Lincolnshire, proposed by Leslie Hotson in 1964.
- Who He. In his 2002 Oxford Shakespeare edition of the sonnets, Colin Burrow argues that the dedication is deliberately mysterious and ambiguous, possibly standing for "Who He", a conceit also used in a contemporary pamphlet. He suggests that it might have been created by Thorpe simply to encourage speculation and discussion (and hence, sales of the text).
- Willie HughesWilliam Hughes (Mr. W. H.)William Hughes is one potential candidate for the person on whom the 'Fair Youth' of Shakespeare's Sonnets is based . The 'Fair Youth' is a handsome, effeminate young man to whom the poet addresses many passionate sonnets. Some sonnets can be interpreted as puns on the name 'William Hughes'...
. The 18th-century scholar Thomas TyrwhittThomas TyrwhittThomas Tyrwhitt was an English classical scholar and critic.-Life:He was born in London, where he also died. He was educated at Eton and Queen's College, Oxford . In 1756 he was appointed under-secretary at war, in 1762 clerk of the House of Commons...
first proposed the theory that Mr. W.H. and the Fair Youth were one "William Hughes," based on presumed puns on the name in the sonnets. The argument was repeated in Edmund Malone's 1790 edition of the sonnets. The most famous exposition of the theory is in Oscar WildeOscar WildeOscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
's short story "The Portrait of Mr. W. H.The Portrait of Mr. W. H.The Portrait of Mr. W. H. is a story written by Oscar Wilde and first published in Blackwood's Magazine in 1889. It was later added to the collection Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories, though it does not appear in early editions....
," in which Wilde, or rather the story's narrator, describes the puns on "will" and "hues" in the sonnets, (notably Sonnet 20Sonnet 20William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 20 was published in a collection of 154 sonnets in the early seventeenth century. This particular sonnet is infamously known and widely interpreted due to questions raised regarding the sexuality of the narrator, and therefore Shakespeare himself...
among others), and argues that they were written to a seductive young actor named Willie Hughes who played female roles in Shakespeare's plays. There is no evidence for the existence of any such person.
Structure
The sonnets are almost all constructed from three four-line stanzas (called quatrainQuatrain
A quatrain is a stanza, or a complete poem, consisting of four lines of verse. Existing in various forms, the quatrain appears in poems from the poetic traditions of various ancient civilizations including Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, and China; and, continues into the 21st century, where it is...
s) and a final couplet
Couplet
A couplet is a pair of lines of meter in poetry. It usually consists of two lines that rhyme and have the same meter.While traditionally couplets rhyme, not all do. A poem may use white space to mark out couplets if they do not rhyme. Couplets with a meter of iambic pentameter are called heroic...
composed in iambic pentameter
Iambic pentameter
Iambic pentameter is a commonly used metrical line in traditional verse and verse drama. The term describes the particular rhythm that the words establish in that line. That rhythm is measured in small groups of syllables; these small groups of syllables are called "feet"...
(a meter used extensively in Shakespeare's plays) with the rhyme
Rhyme
A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds in two or more words and is most often used in poetry and songs. The word "rhyme" may also refer to a short poem, such as a rhyming couplet or other brief rhyming poem such as nursery rhymes.-Etymology:...
scheme abab cdcd efef gg (this form is now known as the Shakespearean sonnet). The only exceptions are Sonnets 99
Sonnet 99
Sonnet 99 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is a member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet expresses his love towards a young man...
, 126
Sonnet 126
Sonnet 126 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It's the final member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet shows how Time and nature coincide....
, and 145
Sonnet 145
Sonnet 145 one of Shakespeare's sonnets. It forms part of the Dark Lady sequence of sonnets. It is written as a description of the feelings of a man who is so in love with a woman that hearing her say that "she hates" something immediately creates a fear that she is referring to him...
. Number 99 has fifteen lines. Number 126 consists of six couplets, and two blank lines marked with italic brackets; 145 is in iambic tetrameter
Iambic tetrameter
Iambic tetrameter is a meter in poetry. It refers to a line consisting of four iambic feet. The word "tetrameter" simply means that there are four feet in the line; iambic tetrameter is a line comprising four iambs...
s, not pentameters. Often, the beginning of the third quatrain marks the volta ("turn"), or the line in which the mood of the poem shifts, and the poet expresses a revelation or epiphany.
There is another variation on the standard English structure, found for example in sonnet 29
Sonnet 29
Sonnet 29 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. This is one of his more ambiguous sonnets: one does not know who the speaker is referring to or if the word "love" in this sonnet refers to a romantic love or a platonic love.- Structure of Sonnet 29...
. The normal rhyme scheme is changed by repeating the b of quatrain one in quatrain three where the f should be. This leaves the sonnet distinct between both Shakespearean and Spenserian styles.
Whether the author intended to step over the boundaries of the standard rhyme scheme will always be in question. Some, like Sir Denis Bray, find the repetition of the words and rhymes to be a "serious technical blemish", while others, like Kenneth Muir, think "the double use of 'state' as a rhyme may be justified, in order to bring out the stark contrast between the Poet's apparently outcast state and the state of joy described in the third quatrain." Given that this is the only sonnet in the collection that follows this pattern, it is hard to say if it was purposely done. But most of the poets at the time were well educated; "schooled to be sensitive to variations in sounds and word order that strike us today as remarkably, perhaps even excessively, subtle." Shakespeare must have been well aware of this subtle change to the firm structure of the English sonnets.
Characters
When analysed as characters, the subjects of the sonnets are usually referred to as the Fair Youth, the Rival Poet, and the Dark Lady. Some scholars claim that the speaker expresses admiration for the Fair Youth's beauty, and later has an affair with the Dark Lady, while others claim a homosexual attraction or relationship between the speaker of the sonnets and the Fair Youth. It is not known whether the poems and their characters are fiction or autobiographical; scholars who find the sonnets to be autobiographical, notably A. L. RowseA. L. Rowse
Alfred Leslie Rowse, CH, FBA , known professionally as A. L. Rowse and to friends and family as Leslie, was a British historian from Cornwall. He is perhaps best known for his work on Elizabethan England and his poetry about Cornwall. He was also a Shakespearean scholar and biographer...
, have attempted to identify the characters with historical individuals.
Fair Youth
The "Fair Youth" is the unnamed young man to whom sonnets 1Sonnet 1
Shakespeare's 1st sonnet is urging the young man he is writing to not to waste his beauty by not fathering a child. The intended recipient of this and other sonnets is a subject of scholarly debate, with many believing it to be Henry Wriothesley. See: Identity of "Mr...
-126
Sonnet 126
Sonnet 126 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It's the final member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet shows how Time and nature coincide....
are addressed. Some commentators, noting the romantic and loving language used in this sequence of sonnets, have suggested a sexual relationship between them; others have read the relationship as platonic love
Platonic love
Platonic love is a chaste and strong type of love that is non-sexual.-Amor Platonicus:The term amor platonicus was coined as early as the 15th century by the Florentine scholar Marsilio Ficino. Platonic love in this original sense of the term is examined in Plato's dialogue the Symposium, which has...
.
The earliest poems in the sequence recommend the benefits of marriage and children. With the famous sonnet 18
Sonnet 18
Sonnet 18, often alternately titled Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?, is one of the best-known of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare...
("Shall I compare thee to a summer's day") the tone changes dramatically towards romantic intimacy. Sonnet 20
Sonnet 20
William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 20 was published in a collection of 154 sonnets in the early seventeenth century. This particular sonnet is infamously known and widely interpreted due to questions raised regarding the sexuality of the narrator, and therefore Shakespeare himself...
explicitly laments that the young man is not a woman. Most of the subsequent sonnets describe the ups and downs of the relationship, culminating with an affair between the poet and the Dark Lady. The relationship seems to end when the Fair Youth succumbs to the Lady's charms.
There have been many attempts to identify the young man. Shakespeare's one-time patron, Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton
Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton
Henry Wriothesley , 3rd Earl of Southampton , was the second son of Henry Wriothesley, 2nd Earl of Southampton, and his wife Mary Browne, Countess of Southampton, daughter of the 1st Viscount Montagu...
is commonly suggested, although Shakespeare's later patron, William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke
William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke
William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, KG, PC was the son of Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke and his third wife Mary Sidney. Chancellor of the University of Oxford, he founded Pembroke College, Oxford with King James. He was warden of the Forest of Dean, and constable of St Briavels from 1608...
, has recently become popular. Both claims begin with the dedication of the sonnets to 'Mr. W.H.', "the only begetter of these ensuing sonnets"; the initials could apply to either earl. However, while Shakespeare's language often seems to imply that the subject is of higher social status than himself, the apparent references to the poet's inferiority may simply be part of the rhetoric of romantic submission. An alternative theory, most famously espoused by Oscar Wilde's short story 'The Portrait of Mr. W.H.' notes a series of puns that may suggest the sonnets are written to a boy actor called William Hughes
William Hughes (Mr. W. H.)
William Hughes is one potential candidate for the person on whom the 'Fair Youth' of Shakespeare's Sonnets is based . The 'Fair Youth' is a handsome, effeminate young man to whom the poet addresses many passionate sonnets. Some sonnets can be interpreted as puns on the name 'William Hughes'...
; however, Wilde's story acknowledges that there is no evidence for such a person's existence. Samuel Butler
Samuel Butler (novelist)
Samuel Butler was an iconoclastic Victorian author who published a variety of works. Two of his most famous pieces are the Utopian satire Erewhon and a semi-autobiographical novel published posthumously, The Way of All Flesh...
believed that the friend was a seaman. Joseph Pequigney argued in his book Such Is My Love that the Fair Youth was an unknown commoner.
The Dark Lady
The Dark Lady sequence (sonnets 127–152), distinguishes itself from the Fair Youth sequence by being overtly sexual in its passion. Among these, Sonnet 151Sonnet 151
Sonnet 151 is the 151st of 154 poems in sonnet form by William Shakespeare published in a 1609 collection titled SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS. The sonnet belongs to the Dark Lady sequence , which distinguishes itself from the The Fair Youth sequence by being more overtly sexual in its passion...
has been characterised as "bawdy" and is used to illustrate the difference between the spiritual love for the Fair Youth and the sexual love for the Dark Lady. The distinction is commonly made in the introduction to modern editions of the sonnets. The Dark Lady is so called because the poems make it clear that she has black hair and dusky skin. As with the Fair Youth, there have been many attempts to identify her with a real historical individual. Mary Fitton
Mary Fitton
Mary Fitton was the daughter of Sir Edward Fitton of Gawsworth, Cheshire and Alice Halcroft, and is considered by some to be the "Dark Lady" of Shakespeare's sonnets. Her elder sister, Anne, married John Newdigate in 1587, at the age of fourteen...
, Emilia Lanier
Emilia Lanier
Emilia Lanier, also spelled Lanyer, was the first Englishwoman to assert herself as a professional poet through her single volume of poems, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum...
and others have been suggested.
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....
was unimpressed by these sonnets. He wrote that:
These sonnets, beginning at 127, to his Mistress, are worse than a puzzle-peg. They are abominably harsh, obscure & worthless. The others are for the most part much better, have many fine lines, very fine lines & passages. They are also in many places warm with passion. Their chief faults, and heavy ones they are, are sameness, tediousness, quaintness, & elaborate obscurity.
The Rival Poet
The Rival Poet's identity has always remained a mystery; among the varied candidates are Christopher MarloweChristopher Marlowe
Christopher Marlowe was an English dramatist, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. As the foremost Elizabethan tragedian, next to William Shakespeare, he is known for his blank verse, his overreaching protagonists, and his mysterious death.A warrant was issued for Marlowe's arrest on 18 May...
, George Chapman
George Chapman
George Chapman was an English dramatist, translator, and poet. He was a classical scholar, and his work shows the influence of Stoicism. Chapman has been identified as the Rival Poet of Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Minto, and as an anticipator of the Metaphysical Poets...
, or, an amalgamation of several contemporaries. However, there is no hard evidence that the character had a real-life counterpart. The speaker sees the Rival as competition for fame, coin and patronage. The sonnets most commonly identified as the Rival Poet group exist within the Fair Youth sequence in sonnets 78
Sonnet 78
Sonnet 78 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It's a member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet expresses his love towards a young man.-Synopsis:...
–86
Sonnet 86
Sonnet 86 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It's a member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet expresses his love towards a young man.-Synopsis:...
.
Themes
One interpretation is that Shakespeare's sonnets are in part a pastichePastiche
A pastiche is a literary or other artistic genre or technique that is a "hodge-podge" or imitation. The word is also a linguistic term used to describe an early stage in the development of a pidgin language.-Hodge-podge:...
or parody
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
of the three-centuries-old tradition of Petrarch
Petrarch
Francesco Petrarca , known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar, poet and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch is often called the "Father of Humanism"...
an love sonnets; Shakespeare consciously inverts conventional gender roles as delineated in Petrarchan sonnets to create a more complex and potentially troubling depiction of human love. He also violated many sonnet rules, which had been strictly obeyed by his fellow poets: he plays with gender roles (20
Sonnet 20
William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 20 was published in a collection of 154 sonnets in the early seventeenth century. This particular sonnet is infamously known and widely interpreted due to questions raised regarding the sexuality of the narrator, and therefore Shakespeare himself...
), he speaks on human evils that do not have to do with love (66
Sonnet 66
Sonnet 66 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It's a member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet expresses his love towards a young man.-Synopsis:...
), he comments on political events (124
Sonnet 124
Sonnet 124 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It's a member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet expresses his love towards a young man....
), he makes fun of love (128
Sonnet 128
-Synopsis:Sonnet 128 is the 128th of William Shakespeare’s sonnets, and the second of two musical sonnets. Its number suggests, like Sonnet 8, the octave of the scale as well as the 12 notes on the keyboard inside each octave -Synopsis:Sonnet 128 is the 128th of William Shakespeare’s sonnets, and...
), he speaks openly about sex (129
Sonnet 129
-Analysis:This Sonnet convinces the reader into disliking the pursuit of sex. The first twelve lines of the poem all add to the first: “The expense of spirit in a waste of shame”. The second verse places a frame around the first “Is lust in action; and till action, lust”...
), he parodies beauty (130
Sonnet 130
Shakespeare's Sonnet CXXX mocks the conventions of the showy and flowery courtly sonnets in its realistic portrayal of his mistress.-Synopsis:...
), and even introduces witty pornography (151
Sonnet 151
Sonnet 151 is the 151st of 154 poems in sonnet form by William Shakespeare published in a 1609 collection titled SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS. The sonnet belongs to the Dark Lady sequence , which distinguishes itself from the The Fair Youth sequence by being more overtly sexual in its passion...
).
Legacy
Coming as they do at the end of conventional Petrarchan sonneteering, Shakespeare's sonnets can also be seen as a prototype, or even the beginning, of a new kind of "modern" love poetry. During the eighteenth century, their reputation in England was relatively low; as late as 1805, The Critical ReviewThe Critical Review
The Critical Review was first edited by Tobias Smollett from 1756 to 1763, and was contributed to by Samuel Johnson, David Hume, John Hunter, and Oliver Goldsmith, until 1817....
could still credit John Milton
John Milton
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
with the perfection of the English sonnet. As part of the renewed interest in Shakespeare's original work that accompanied Romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
, the sonnets rose steadily in reputation during the nineteenth century.
The cross-cultural importance and influence of the sonnets is demonstrated by the large number of translations that have been made of them. In the German-speaking countries alone, there have been 70 complete translations since 1784. There is no major written language into which the sonnets have not been translated, including Latin,, Japanese,Turkish,Esperanto, and Klingon.
Modern editions
Like all of Shakespeare's work, the sonnets have been reprinted in many editions.- Martin Seymour-Smith (1963) Shakespeare's Sonnets (Oxford, Heinemann Educational)
- Stephen Booth (1977) Shakespeare's Sonnets (Yale)
- W G Ingram and Theodore Redpath (1978) Shakespeare's Sonnets, 2nd Edition
- John Kerrigan (1986) The Sonnets and a Lover's Complaint (Penguin)
- G. Blakemore Evans (1996) The Sonnets (Cambridge UP)
- Katherine Duncan-Jones (1997) Shakespeare's Sonnets (Arden Edition, Third Series)
- Helen VendlerHelen VendlerHelen Hennessy Vendler is a leading American critic of poetry.-Life and career:Vendler has written books on Emily Dickinson, W. B. Yeats, Wallace Stevens, John Keats, and Seamus Heaney. She has been a professor of English at Harvard University since 1984; between 1981 and 1984 she taught...
(1997) The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets, Harvard University Press - Colin Burrow (2002) The Complete Sonnets and Poems (Oxford, Oxford University Press)
See also
- George Bernard ShawGeorge Bernard ShawGeorge Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
's The Dark Lady of the SonnetsThe Dark Lady of the SonnetsThe Dark Lady of the Sonnets is a 1910 short play by George Bernard Shaw on William Shakespeare and the "Dark Lady" character in his sonnets.-External links:*... - Sonnet 1Sonnet 1Shakespeare's 1st sonnet is urging the young man he is writing to not to waste his beauty by not fathering a child. The intended recipient of this and other sonnets is a subject of scholarly debate, with many believing it to be Henry Wriothesley. See: Identity of "Mr...
through Sonnet 154Sonnet 154William Shakespeare's Sonnet 153 and Sonnet 154 are based upon a poem attributed to the Greek poet Marcianus Scholasticus. The poem describes how Cupid has his love brand stolen by nymphs...
External links
- Historical background to Shakespeare's Sonnets
- The Sonnets – Compare two sonnets side-by-side, see all of them together on one page, or view a range of sonnets (from Open Source ShakespeareOpen Source Shakespeare' is a Web site with the complete works of William Shakespeare. It was created using as the texts, which in turn was created from the 1864 Globe edition of the complete works...
) - The Sonnets – Full text and commentary.
- The Sonnets – Plain vanilla text from Project GutenbergProject GutenbergProject Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks". Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books...
- Shakepeare's Sonnets Overview of each sonnet in contemporary English
- Free audiobook from LibriVox
- Complete sonnets of William Shakespeare – Listed by number and first line.
- Gerald Massey – 'The Secret Drama of Shakspeare's Sonnets (1888 edition)
- Discussion of the identification of Emily Lanier as the Dark Lady
- Shakespeare Sonnet Shake-Up "Remix" Shakespeare's sonnets
- shakespeareintune.com all the 154 Sonnets are here recited with a musical introduction.
- Online, free, self-referential concordance to the Sonnets
- 'Instant' sonnet search with links to University of Victoria facsimiles