A Note on
Shakespeare's Sonnets
[The following note has been prepared by Ian Johnston for students in English
366 at Malaspina University-College, Nanaimo, BC (now
Vancouver Island University). This document is in the public domain, released
August 1999, last revised on August 22, 1999]
The collection of poems called Shakespeare's Sonnets
includes 154 short poems composed as sonnets. These were published, together
with a poem called "A Lover's Complaint," in 1609. It seems clear,
however, primarily on stylistic grounds, that many of the sonnets were written
well before that date. There is very little direct evidence in the poems
themselves which might point to a specific date (Sonnet 107 is sometimes held
to refer to the coronation of James I in 1603), and we have no independent
authorities to help us with the dates of composition. The range of styles and
attitudes explored in the poems suggests that some of them must have been
written during the so-called "problem" period (1600-1603), for there
is a great similarity between some of the sonnets and the style of Hamlet
and Troilus and Cressida. Others seem much earlier than this.
THE SONNET CONVENTION
The sonnet, as a poetic genre, began in Italy in the thirteenth
century, and, under the later influence of the Italian poet Petrarch, became
internationally popular. Petrarch established the basic form of the so-called Petrarchan sonnet: 14 lines divided into two clear parts,
an opening octet (8 lines) and a closing sestet (6 lines) with a fixed rhyme
scheme (abbaabba cdecde).
Often the octet will pose a problem or paradox which the sestet will resolve.
Petrarch also established the convention of the sonnet sequence as a series of
love poems written by an adoring lover to an unattainable and unapproachable
lady of unsurpassed beauty. The Petrarchan sonnet
convention, in other words, established, not merely the form of the poem, but
also the subject matter.
The sonnet form was brought into English poetry in the sixteenth
century by Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard (Earl of Surrey). They introduced some
modifications in the form, sometimes substituting for the traditional division
into octet and sestet a division into three quatrains (4 lines each) and a
closing couplet, with a different (but still tightly controlled) rhyme scheme.
This form later became known as the Shakespearean Sonnet,
named after its greatest practitioner. Shakespeare uses both the Petrarchan and the Shakespearean structure in his sonnets.
By Shakespeare's time the sonnet sequence was a very well established literary
convention.
The Petrarchan convention of love
(despairing lover writing to a lovely, unattainable lady in words of reverent
praise and worshipful adoration) gave rise, as all really popular conventions
do, to its opposite, an anti-Petrarchan convention,
in which the woman to whom the poem was addressed was castigated as a deceitful
and often ugly manipulator. In other words, the sonnet form developed as
subject matter both the faithful adoration of the idealized female lover and
the spiteful contempt for a person entirely unworthy of love (which was a
continuation of a very old misogynist tradition in European literature).
An important part of the sonnet convention was often a celebration
of the poet's “wit,” that is, of his ability to show his poetic skill in
appropriating metaphors and conceits (extended metaphors) in clever ways, so
that the poem becomes, not just a tribute to the lady but also a testament to
his great skill as a poet. Hence, the sonnet convention often encouraged a
highly artificial and very literary treatment of feelings of love. One of the
most remarkable features of many of Shakespeare’s best sonnets is the way his
language transforms this frequently artificial and conventional form of
literature into something direct, urgent, and sincerely passionate.
THE SEQUENCE OF SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS
The precise order of the poems in Shakespeare's sonnet sequence
has occasioned some scholarly dispute, although there is, in general,
widespread agreement with a more or less standard order. Conventionally the
sonnets fall into three clear groupings: Sonnets 1 to 126 are addressed to or
concern a young man; Sonnets 127-152 are addressed to or concern a dark lady
(dark in the sense of her hair, her facial features, and her character), and
Sonnets 153-154 are fairly free adaptations of two classical Greek poems.
Attributing Sonnets 1-126 to a young man and Sonnets 127-152 to a
dark lady is somewhat problematical, since in many of the poems the gender of
the person addressed is not at all clear (although sometimes it is). We have no
clear mandate to interpret poems invoking "my love" as referring
necessarily to a male or to a female, since the term is used to refer to both
sexes equally.
THE SUBJECT MATTER OF THE SHAKESPEARE’S
SONNET SEQUENCE
One can study Shakespeare's sonnets as independent poems or, in
some cases, as short sequences of a few poems (since many are linked together
by subject matter), or as an entire sonnet sequence, trying to make of the
total collection some form of coherent or semi-coherent narrative. We have no
particular need or right to construct such a narrative (after all, the poems
may be quite independent of each other), but the temptation to do so is almost
irresistible.
Shakespeare's sonnet sequence begins with a series of poems urging
the young man to whom they are addressed to get married, so that he will leave
the world a copy of his beauty, which will therefore not suffer the ravages of
time. The young man is clearly single, very accomplished, good looking, and of
noble birth. In Sonnet 18 the theme shifts slightly, as the speaker of the poem
(who identifies himself as the poet) claims that the young man will achieve
immortality through these very sonnets, which will preserve his beauty for all
time. But the tone of the sonnets quickly becomes much more personal as the
speaker explores his love for the young man and, at times, his despair at
absences from the young man and at the young man's unfaithfulness. In at least
one poem (Sonnet 20) there seems to be a very explicit homosexual basis to the
relationship between the speaker-poet and the young man. Elsewhere, there is a
suggestion that the young man is having an affair with a woman also loved by
the speaker-poet (an issue which Sonnet 42 raises and which is later explored
in Sonnet 144, a poem which suggests that the young man and the dark lady are
lovers). Sonnet 78 starts a concern for some rival poet who has engaged the
attention and the affection of the young man. The unfaithfulness of the young
man leads the speaker to question his moral character with very specific images
of infection and disease (which suggests venereal infection--as in Sonnets 94
and 95).
The dark lady sequence (which starts with Sonnet 127) also offers
tantalizing narrative suggestions. She is conventionally referred to as the
Dark Lady although she is rarely called dark (the adjective "black"
is much more commonly applied to her), and we have no evidence that she was a
noble (as the term lady might suggest). The speaker establishes that both he
and the lady are no longer young, and he knows his love for this lady is wrong
(sinful) but he cannot escape it. This puts him in a powerful moral anguish (as
in Sonnet 129, 144, and 147). She is unfaithful to him, and he is unfaithful to
her, and both are committing adultery with others and with each other
(including, it seems, the young man). And yet at times his expressions of love
are unequivocally beautiful and confident (Sonnet 116).
What is particularly remarkable about the sequence of poems
addressed to or concerning the young man and the dark lady is the extraordinary
range of emotions explored, everything from confident
declarations of total love, to gloom at separation, joy at reunion, bitter
disappointment at mutual infidelity, and savage despair at being locked into
behaviour which will damn him to hell.
What is also remarkable is the range of styles in the sonnets.
Some of the poems are relatively conventional sonnets in execution and
achievement; and some are inferior poems by any standard. Some are clearly
designed to show off the poet's skill at the expense of any real sincerity of
feeling. Many have a richly complex style, and others are apparently very
simple in vocabulary, syntax, and form (none more so than Sonnet 66). But the
best of the sonnets, the finest love poems in English, display an astonishing
synthesis of technical sophistication and passionate eloquence, qualities which
transform any lingering conventional attitudes to love into something which
registers as uniquely and sincerely felt (e.g., Sonnet 116, Sonnet 138, Sonnet
129, Sonnet 144, Sonnet 147, to name a few).
A BIOGRAPHICAL BASIS FOR THE SONNETS
Not surprisingly, many scholars (professional and amateur) have
seen in Shakespeare's Sonnets a revealing insight into the biography of William
Shakespeare. There is, of course, absolutely no reason why we have to see these
poems as based upon real experience; the poems could be about entirely imagined
people and experiences. However, given the emotional pressure contained in many
of these sonnets and the fact that some of them are about a person named Will,
many people believe they must contain important clues to Shakespeare’s life.
And so the scholarly hunt is on. Who is the young man? Who are the rival poet
and the dark lady? An enormous amount of energy has been spent on such
questions; all suggestions, however, remain inconclusive.
There is, so it is alleged, one vital clue given by the dedication
to the Sonnets, which runs as follows:
TO.THE.ONLY.BEGETTER.OF.
THESE.ENSUING.SONNETS.
MR.W. H.ALL.HAPPINESS.
AND.THAT.ETERNITY.
PROMISED.
BY.
OUR.EVER-LIVING.POET.
WISHETH.
THE.WELL-WISHING.
ADVENTURER.IN.
SETTING.
FORTH.
T.T.
The initials T.T. at the bottom evidently refer to Thomas Thorpe,
the publisher. But who is Mr. W. H.? If he is “the only begetter of these
ensuing sonnets,” then he might be the young man. Hence, if there is a
biographical basis for the sonnet sequence, we need to find a young, single,
rich, handsome, noble young man with the initials W.H. and with some connection
(if possible) to William Shakespeare. Depending on when we date the composition
of these sonnets about the young man, our candidates for the role will change.
There is not time to rehearse all the suggestions, which range from Henry Wriothesley, Third Earl of Southampton, to Willie Hughes, a
homosexual ship's cook or boy actor. The initials may be a misprint for Mr. W.
Sh. referring to the author.
There have also been many suggestions for the identity of the
rival poet and of the dark lady. Again, there is no consensus on a particular
candidate. But the search goes on.
THE SONNETS IN ENGLISH 366
In this course we are not undertaking a systematic study of the
Sonnets as a totality. We will, however, be looking at a selection of sonnets
and discussing them in the newsgroup. The major purpose of this discussion is
to explore some of the variety in the collection and to improve our ability to
interpret lyric poetry.
In the discussions of the sonnets, students should remember that
the purpose of an interpretative discussion is not simply to reach some
agreement on a prose translation of the sonnet (i.e., determine its literal
meaning by providing a summary of the content). That may be an important
initial step. But the real challenge is to explore the range of the feelings
illuminated by the particular language of the sonnet, that is, to see how the
particular words, images, rhythms, rhymes, and so on help to take us into a
range of feelings about the experience which the speaker is presenting. In
carrying out this task, we should bring to bear some evaluative criteria (e.g.,
Is this a successful poem? What criticisms might one
express about it? How does this sonnet compare with others on a similar theme?
And so on.). It is vitally important that our discussions do not get bogged
down in interminable arguments about the precise denoted meaning of the lines
(i.e., into arguments about the literal translation). If we don't discuss
elements of the style and explore how those contribute to our understanding of
the emotional attitude of the speaker, then we will be missing the main point
of such interpretation.