Mini: Shakespeare's Sonnets
In today's episode, we are continuing our series on Shakespeare's Language Framework by looking at his sonnets!
In addition to his plays, Shakespeare also wrote 154 sonnets. What are they and can they tell us anything about the man behind the plays?
Kourtney Smith (KS): Welcome to another Shakespeare Anyone mini-episode! In these mini-episodes, we’ll be exploring topics that are related to Shakespeare but aren’t necessarily connected to whatever play we’ve been discussing.
Elyse Sharp (ES): And they’re mini, because, well, they’re shorter than our other episodes. They’re like quartos if the regular episodes are folio editions.
KS: Today’s episode is another part of our series on Shakespeare’s Language Framework, or how Shakespeare’s use of language can inform our understanding of his works. In today’s episode, we are going to step away from the plays (a little) and take a look at Shakespeare’s sonnets.
ES: In addition to his plays, Shakespeare also wrote 154 sonnets. A sonnet is a poem of 14 lines, with varying rhyming schemes. Literally translating as “little song,” the sonnet originated in Italy and was brought to England in the 1500s by Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, earl of Surrey. A sonnet usually reflects on a single sentiment, with a turn or clarification of thought in the final lines. The rhyme scheme of a sonnet can vary–and when we describe rhyme schemes, we use letters to indicate which lines rhyme with each other. A rhymes with A, B rhymes with B, and so on.
KS: There’s the Petrarchan style, based on the poems that Petrarch wrote to a woman named Laura (pronounced La-ooh-ra to make the meter work). They are love poems that detail Petrarch’s admiration for Laura’s beauty from afar–cataloging and complimenting each body part (recall how Twelfth Night’s Olivia calls out Cesario and Duke Orsino for using the Petrarchan style to catalog her body). A Petrarchan sonnet divides the 14 lines of a sonnet into two sections: an eight-line stanza (or octave) that rhymes ABBAABBA, then a six-line stanza that rhymes CDCDCD or CDECDE. Examples of this style include John Milton’s “When I Consider How my Life Is Spent” and Elizabeth Barret Browning’s “How Do I Love Thee.”
ES: Wyatt and Surrey developed the form that became known as the English (or Shakespearean) sonnet which turns the 14 lines into three four-line stanzas (or quatrains) followed by a couplet, and of course, everything is in iambic pentameter. Check out our first Language Framework Mini-Episode on Prose and Verse for more about iambs and pentameter! The rhyme scheme of the English sonnet goes: ABABCDCDEFEFGG. Each quatrain is made up of alternating rhyming lines, until the couplet at the end where two rhyming lines are paired together and provide that final turn or clarification.
KS: We can find examples of sonnets within Shakespeare’s plays in addition to the 154 that were published separately. In Romeo and Juliet, when the title characters first meet, the first fourteen lines they speak to each other form a sonnet:
And, for clarification, Elyse will read Romeo’s lines and I will read Juliet’s.
ES: If I profane with my unworthiest hand/This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:/ My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand/ To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
KS: Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,/ Which mannerly devotion shows in this;/ For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,/ And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.
ES: Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
KS: Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
ES: O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;/ They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
KS: Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.
ES: Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.
KS: Sonnets can also be found in Love’s Labour’s Lost and Henry V. However, when scholars (or really anyone) refers to Shakespeare’s Sonnets, they are referring to the 154 that were published separately.
ES: Shakespeare’s sonnets were originally published as a quarto in 1609. The quarto was titled SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS. [Never] before Imprinted and contains a dedication page before the poems that reads:
“TO. THE. ONLIE. BEGETTER. OF.
THESE. [ENSUING]. 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.”
It is not clear if the order in which the sonnets were published was intentional or random. And if it was intentional, we can’t know if that was Shakespeare’s decision or the publisher’s. In addition to the sonnets, the Quarto also includes the poem called “A Lover’s Complaint.” Fun fact: two of the sonnets in the Quarto were actually printed ten years prior in a book titled The Passionate Pilgrime. By W. Shakespeare, which contains a lot of verse not written by Shakespeare. So, even the titular claim of the quarto (that the sonnets inside had never before been published) is technically incorrect.
KS: However, we do know that Shakespeare wrote these 154 sonnets, probably at some point (or over many years) in the 1590s and early 1600s. We don’t know if Shakespeare intended them for an audience (or reader) of any sort, or if they were more of a writing exercise. However, since two were previously published and a contemporary described Shakespeare as showing his “sugared sonnets” around to his “private friends,” he definitely wasn’t keeping them a secret.
ES: We also don’t know if the speaker in the sonnets is Shakespeare himself or some imagined figure. It is assumed that most of the sonnets are at least semi-autobiographical and personal–kinda like the music of Taylor Swift today. And like Swift’s fans today, scholars debate the identity of the subjects of Shakespeare’s sonnets. These subjects are known as The Fair Youth and the Dark Lady.
KS: If we believe the sonnets were published in an order intended to create a sense of narrative, then most of the first 126 evoke the poet’s highly charged romantic and sexual desire for a beautiful young man of high status, or The Fair Youth. Sonnets 1-17 focus on telling a young man to settle down and have children–both in the interest of preserving the family name and even more, to stress the importance of reproducing so that this man’s remarkable beauty can be passed on.
ES: The next set, Sonnets 18-126, are also focused on that young man. Probably. And in the supposed narrative created by the publishing order, these sonnets tell of specific events in the relationship between the Fair Youth and the Poet. These are sonnets like “Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments”--which is read at weddings today, and “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day.”
KS: There are three widely accepted possibilities for The Fair Youth’s identity, all of which are tied back to the dedication of the quarto. While T.T. from the dedication is accepted to be Thomas Thorpe, the publisher of the quarto of sonnets, scholars have long speculated and debated on the identity of Mr. W. H. Some insist that the initials were somehow reversed and identify W.H. as Henry Wriothesley, earl of Southampton, who was one of Shakespeare’s earliest known patrons. Other candidates for the identity of Mr. W.H. include another known patron, William Herbert, earl of Pembroke, and a Willie Hughes.
ES: There is also a female romantic subject in the sonnets, known as the Dark Lady. Her sonnets, numbers 127-154, are a lot darker. No one’s reading them at weddings, and poems addressed to her do not assert heteronormativive romance. Instead, the romance with the Dark Lady has slipped into a cycle of longing and loathing.
KS: The speaker is tormented by his attraction to this woman, and he includes insults in his sonnets. Sonnet 130, which begins “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun,” for example, employs a satirical take on the Petrarchan love poem style to give the Dark Lady ironic praise. While a Petrarchan love poem would itemize a woman’s body parts in order to compliment them as exceptional, this poem basically says, “she’s not exceptional, and that’s why I like her, and in fact, all these poets (including my past self) have just been exaggerating.” In Sonnet 144, he also compares the two muses of the sonnets, saying of his loves: “the better angel is a man right fair; the worser spirit a woman coloured ill.”
ES: But we also don’t know exactly who the Dark Lady, also known as the Black Mistress, is. Possible candidates for her identity include Mary Fitton, a lady-in-waiting of Elizabeth’s court, Emilia Lanier, a contemporary female poet, and Black Luce, a British-African brothel owner. We also don’t know if she was black as we would describe someone today or just brunette in contrast to the blond young man.
KS: Despite the popularity of his plays, Shakespeare’s sonnets were not very popular at all. No one really took note of them when they were published in 1609, and for 200 years, the only thing any scholar or editor could say about them was that they were boring. One editor, when explaining why he wouldn’t reprint the sonnets, even said that not even “the strongest act of parliament that could be framed” would make readers like them.
ES: And yet, Shakespeare’s sonnets endured to this day. With a quick Etsy search, you can find almost 1,000 sonnet-themed pieces of art. Sonnet 116 alone is printed on pillows, mugs, t-shirts, jewelry, and more. Rufus Wainwright put three sonnets to music for his 2010 album All Days are Nights: Songs for Lulu. Despite editors and scholars disdaining Shakespeare’s poetry for over 200 years, poets continued and continue to use the form. Robert Frost, Edna St. Vincent Millay, William Butler Yeats, W.H. Auden, Edgar Allen Poe, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, Dylan Thomas, E.E. Cummings, to name just a handful, all wrote sonnets.
KS: And at popsonnet.tumblr.com (now available in book form), Erik Didreksen transforms pop songs into Shakespearean sonnets. Here are two of our favorites.
ES: 92. “The tolls upon Success’s roads are steep,/ yet I did each one faithfully remit;/ I did each punitory sentence keep, although I never did a crime commit./ O I have missteps made – far more than one – for each, I’ve had sand punted in my face./ Despite it all, I still have vict’ry won/ and taken up the mantle of first place./ Yea, triumph’s sweet, but ‘tis not pure delight –/ no, I did not a life of leisure choose./ My battle rages on, and still I fight/ for I have long resolv’d to never lose./ – Our winning ways are o’er the world renown’d;/ my friends, we have as th’ champions been crown’d!” Queen, “We are the Champions”.
KS: 67. “I caught the sound of faintly spoken words/ as nervously I paced the church’s aisle./ It was a bridesmaid that I overheard/ who said unto the steward something vile./ ‘How beautif’lly the wedding chapel’s wrought!’/ she happ’ly said, ere furtively she bade,/ ‘Though ‘tis a pity that it’s all for naught,/ for groom has been by bride a cuckold made!’/ As what does not exist cannot expire,/ the marriage had by happenstance been sav’d;/ and thus, I’ve rais’d my glass and not my ire –/ ‘tis wiser I’ve with sober poise behav’d/ – although I’ll still that loose-lipp’d lass implorES:/ hast ne’er thou thought to close the God-damn’d door?” Panic! at the Disco, “I Write Sins Not Tragedies”.
ES: And on that note, thank you for listening.
Quote of the Episode:
ES: From Antony and Cleopatra, act three, scene thirteen, said by Cleopatra, “The next Caesarion smite,/Till by degrees the memory of my womb,/Together with my brave Egyptians all,/By the discandying of this pelleted storm/Lie graveless till the flies and gnats of Nile/Have buried them for prey.”
Shakespeare Anyone? is created and produced by Kourtney Smith and Elyse Sharp.
Note: When this episode was recorded, Kourtney Smith was "Korey Leigh Smith".
Episode written and researched by Elyse Sharp.
Music is "Neverending Minute" by Sounds Like Sander.
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Works referenced:
Gassman, Ian. “10 More Songs Inspired by William Shakespeare.” Pastemagazine.com, Paste Magazine, 27 Apr. 2016, https://www.pastemagazine.com/music/william-shakespeare/10-more-songs-inspired-by-william-shakespeare/#1-when-in-disgrace-with-fortune-and-men-s-eyes-sonnet-29-rufus-wainwright-feat-florence-welch.
Green, John, et al. Shakespeare's Sonnets: Crash Course Literature 304. YouTube, YouTube, 27 July 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDpW1sHrBaU. Accessed 20 Feb. 2022.
Magnusson, Lynne. “A Modern Perspective: Shakespeare's Sonnets.” The Folger SHAKESPEARE, Folger Library, 15 Aug. 2021, https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/shakespeares-sonnets/shakespeares-sonnets-a-modern-perspective/.
Scabere, Wilude, and Society of Classical Poets, The. “On the 400th Anniversary of Shakespeare's Death: Society of Classical Poets.” Society of Classical Poets | A Community of Poets Dedicated to Classical Forms, The Society of Classical Poets, 26 Apr. 2016, https://classicalpoets.org/2016/04/26/on-the-400th-anniversary-of-shakespeares-death/#/.
Werstine, Barbara Mowat and Paul, and Editors of the Folger Shakespeare Library Editions. “About Shakespeare's Sonnets.” The Folger SHAKESPEARE, Folger Library, 29 July 2021, https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/shakespeares-sonnets/about-shakespeares-sonnets/.
Werstine, Barbara Mowat and Paul, and Editors of the Folger Shakespeare Library Editions. “An Introduction to This Text: Shakespeare's Sonnets.” The Folger SHAKESPEARE, Folger Library, 15 Aug. 2021, https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/shakespeares-sonnets/an-introduction-to-this-text/.
