Shakespeare’s Sonnets

AP English Literature
Shakespeare wrote about 154 sonnets
Shakespearean Sonnets
A sonnet is an intellectual puzzle.
• A problem or a question is introduced in the 1st
quatrain.
• This idea is complicated in the 2nd quatrain.
• The idea is further complicated in the 3rd
quatrain.
• Finally, the problem or question is usually
resolved in the rhyming couplet at the end.
Petrarchan vs Shakespearean sonnets
Francesco Petrarch’s sonnets:
• octave and sestet with a volta at line 9
• dedicated solely to Laura, the embodiment of perfection,
unattainable
• admiration and passion from afar
William Shakespeare’s sonnets:
• 3 quatrains and a couplet; often a volta at line 9
• loves are reciprocal and articulate
• admiration and passion from within a real relationship
Shakespearean Sonnets
• Conventional images paired with unsettling statements.
• Numbered 1-154 rather than titled
Two categories:
• The “Fair Youth” (lover? son Hamnet?) and the “Rival
Poet” who competes for this youth’s affections
• The “Dark Lady”
• Very little agreement about these poems, esp.
about the circumstances of their composition and
first publication.
• The sonnets were first collected published in 1609
as a Quarto volume, perhaps without Shakespeare’s
permission. He most likely had been circulating a
manuscript of his poems among friends--Thomas
Thorpe pirated (?) the sonnets, collected them into
one volume, and published them.
Some Shakespearean scholars believe that
Shakespeare sold the manuscript to Thorpe when
theatres were closed (plague). 13 of these first
editions still survive.
The majority of the sonnets (1-126) are addressed to a young man, with whom
the poet has an intense relationship. The poet spends the first seventeen
sonnets trying to convince the young man to marry and have children, beautiful
children that will look just like their father, ensuring his immortality. Many of the
remaining sonnets in this first section focus on the power of poetry and pure
love to defeat death.

The final 28 sonnets (127-154) are addressed to a woman known to modern

readers as the dark lady.
The question remains whether the poet-speaker is expressing Shakespeare's
personal feelings. Since we know little about Shakespeare's personal life, we
should read the collected sonnets as a work of fiction, just as we would read his
plays.
To the “Fair Youth”
• Could reflect the Neoplatonic (i.e. nonsexual)
Renaissance cult of male friendship, could
reflect homoeroticism, could reflect parental
love and grief
• Deal with topics of desire and aesthetics,
jealousy, and the ravages of time
To the “Dark Lady”

• The odd features and effects of attraction

• A desire for the unconventional and qualities
not usually admired; self-identification with that
which is different
 Who exactly they are written to or about =
nuttiness and beside the point
Instead, focus on themes and find the subversive,
ambiguous statements.
Although love is the overarching theme of the sonnets,
there are three specific underlying themes: (1) the brevity of
life, (2) the transience of beauty, and (3) the trappings of
desire. The first two of these underlying themes are the
focus of the early sonnets addressed to the young man (in
particular Sonnets 1-17) where the poet argues that having
children to carry on one's beauty is the only way to conquer
the ravages of time.
The speaker
When analyzing the speaker as the sonnet progresses,
ask:
• Does the speaker see more?
• Change their mind?
• Go from description to analysis?
• Go from a negative refutation to a positive refutation?
• In what ways is the speaker self-aware and ironic?
If you’re stumped, try this:
Think of the sonnet as a locked box, to which there is a
key. Find the key word and follow it to spring open the
box.
Many times this will be a word contained in the couplet at
the end, which you may find a variant of within the main
body of the sonnet.

Ex: Sonnet 138 Line 13 And in our faults by lies we

flattered be. Line 2 I do believe her though I know she
lies

Or use Auden’s question to himself:

“Here is a verbal contraption. How does it work?”
Another way to find the theme:
Try reading just the rhyming words straight down, as if they
were a slender poem in their own right. Sonnet 138 would
give us:
truth lies subtleties
young best
tongue suppressed unjust old truth
told me
be
Poetic devices that could convey theme:

diction (look for word choice that is striking or surprising)

imagery
juxtaposition
structure of the sonnet itself--volta, couplet
speaker’s point of view
Sources
Fineman, Joel. Shakespeare’s Perjured Eye: The Invention of Poetic Subjectivity in the Sonnets.

Mabillard, Amanda. Introduction to Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Shakespeare Online. 30 Aug. 2000. < http://www.shakespeare-online.
com/sonnets/sonnetintroduction.html >.

http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/53

Schiffer, James. Ed. Shakespeare’s Sonnets: Critical Essays.

Vendler, Helen. The Art of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, Vol. 1
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Sonnets1609titlepage.jpg
http://gurdjieffbooks.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/renaissance-keys2.jpg