Shakespeare's sonnets

Shakespeare's sonnets are usually understood to be the 154 poems first collected in a 1609 quarto, though he also wove five additional sonnets into Romeo and Juliet, Henry V, and Love's Labour's Lost, plus a partial one in Edward III. These poems continue the Renaissance sonnet tradition that began with Petrarch in 14th-century Italy and reached England through Thomas Wyatt, with its rhyme scheme and quatrain structure later refined by Henry Howard. Shakespeare mostly follows the English sonnet form—14 lines, a set rhyme scheme, and iambic pentameter—but he breaks sharply with convention in subject matter. Instead of praising an unattainable, goddess-like woman, as Petrarch, Dante, and Philip Sidney did, Shakespeare writes to a young man and a "Dark Lady," exploring lust, betrayal, and bitterness.

The quarto of 1609

The 1609 quarto, titled Shake-speare's Sonnets, is the main source for these poems. It contains all 154 sonnets, followed by the long poem "A Lover's Complaint." Thirteen copies survive in decent condition; one copy's title page shows that actor Edward Alleyn bought it in June 1609 for a shilling. The sonnets touch on time, love, infidelity, jealousy, beauty, and mortality. The first 126 are addressed to a young man; the last 28 refer to a woman.

(Sonnets 138 and 144 had already appeared in the 1599 collection The Passionate Pilgrim.) The quarto's title, with the author's name in possessive form, was unusual for sonnet collections—only Sir Philip Sidney's posthumous Syr. P.S. his Astrophel and Stella did the same, and that work was a key model. Sidney's title may have inspired Shakespeare, especially if the "W.H." of the dedication is Sidney's nephew and heir, William Herbert. Scholars strongly reject the idea that the speaker is Shakespeare himself, but the quarto's title encourages such speculation.

The first 17 sonnets, called the procreation sonnets, urge the young man to marry and have children to preserve his beauty. Other sonnets express the speaker's love for the young man, dwell on loneliness, death, and life's brevity, criticize the young man for favoring a rival poet, convey mixed feelings about the mistress, and pun on the poet's name. The final two sonnets allegorize Greek epigrams about Cupid.

Publisher Thomas Thorpe entered the book in the Stationers' Register on 20 May 1609. Whether he used an authorized manuscript or an unauthorized copy is unknown. George Eld printed the quarto, and the run was split between booksellers William Aspley and John Wright.

The dedication reads: "TO THE ONLIE BEGETTER OF THESE INSUING SONNETS MR. W.H. ALL HAPPINESSE AND THAT ETERNITIE PROMISED BY OUR EVER-LIVING POET WISHETH THE WELL-WISHING ADVENTURER IN SETTING FORTH. T.T." The uppercase letters and stops mimic ancient Roman inscriptions or monumental brass, perhaps echoing Sonnet 55's promise of immortality.

Dedication

The initials "T.T." refer to Thorpe, who usually signed prefaces only if the author was absent or dead—suggesting Shakespeare may not have been in London during printing. However, Thorpe only signed four dedications and three prefaces in total. Some think Thorpe published without Shakespeare's permission, but the poet may have been rushed: May 1609 saw a plague outbreak that closed theaters and drove many from London; Shakespeare's company was touring; and he was called to Stratford for family business and a lawsuit involving a large sum.

The identity of Mr. W.H., "the only begetter," remains unknown. Speculation abounds: he might be Shakespeare's patron, both patron and the "faire youth" addressed in the sonnets, or the basis for that youth in only some poems.