The Sonnets of William Shakespeare

Introduction

William Shakespeare began to write his famous collection of sonnets in the early 1590’s, when he was in his late 20’s.

He was mainly a playwright, of course, but outbreaks of a horrific and highly contagious disease, known as the bubonic plague, occasionally forced the theatres to close, and it may have been one such epidemic which forced Shakespeare to take a reprieve from playwriting and turn to poetry instead. There was also a vogue for sonnet writing in the latter half of the sixteenth century, another reason which likely motivated him. And he had found the love interest upon which his sonnet collection would focus.

The sonnets tell a story of a young writer who forms a deep friendship with a young man, apparently of noble birth. The poet praises his dear friend’s beauty and intelligence and urges him, possibly at instigation of his friend’s mother, to marry and raise a family. Such rare beauty and intelligence must be passed along; you owe it to the world, the poet argues.

As time goes by, the poet seems to realize that his advice is misplaced because a wife and family would threaten the amount of time his friend could spend with him. He turns his attention away from recommending his friend marry and raise a family and more toward expressions of praise for his friend’s beauty, grace, intelligence, generosity and charm. He resolves to immortalize his friends’ many virtues, a resolution he certainly fulfilled.

But paradise always has its troubles, and trouble comes in the form of a rival poet who turns the friend’s head and secures the patronage Shakespeare now must share. Suddenly Shakespeare is worried about his place in his friend’s universe, and he pours out his anguish and insecurity, convinced of his own inferiority in this new chapter in the story.

The influence of the rival poet fades and passes, but another crisis arises. The poet has fallen for a beautiful dark-haired woman and expresses his love and, more so, his desire her for her. He is insecure in this relationship. The Dark Lady is something of a free spirit. He suspects that his dear friend and his Dark Lady are cheating on him. He is devastated.

The crisis is not resolved. The story ends inconclusively, the poet unable to resist the Dark Lady’s charms, even while he suspects her of infidelity.

The real-life identities of the characters in the Sonnets are the great mystery of English literary history. Who is the handsome noble friend? There are intriguing clues. When the Sonnets were published in 1609, possibly without the poet’s permission, the title page announced “the only begetter” of the sonnets as one W.H.  Scholars who define “begetter” as “author” (“beget” meaning “to bring about/to bring into existence”) believe the printer simply mistook the H for an S or omitted the S before the H, which would have established the “begetter” clearly as W. SH. (i.e., William Shakespeare).

Scholars who define “begetter” as “muse” (a person who serves as inspiration for an artist) suggest W.H. refers to the handsome young nobleman who inspired the poems. Shakespeare knew well two such men. Both were generous patrons of poets and playwrights. One was Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton; the other was William Herbert, the Earl of Pembroke. Southampton’s age and physical appearance match the contents of some of the sonnets, but his initials are reversed on the title page, possibly by error, possibly as an attempt to conceal his true identity. Pembroke’s initials are correct, but he was only twelve when the sonnets were written, inappropriately young to be the muse of a thirty-year-old man. The debate continues, with other even less likely identities suggested, but it will probably never be resolved.

Nor can the identity of the other major characters in the story be established with any certainty. The rival poet may be one of Shakespeare’s contemporaries: Christopher Marlow, George Chapman or Samuel Daniel. The Dark Lady may be Amelia Lanier, the daughter of Queen Elizabeth’s musical director, though this recent essay on Lanier [New Tab] leads away from the thesis that she was the origin of Shakespeare’s Dark Lady.

All of the main characters may be fictitious, products of Shakespeare’s magnificent imagination. In the end, it makes little difference to the integrity of Shakespeare’s sonnet sequence, one of the crowning achievements of English literature.

Sonnets