Literatura Inglesa I aula 1

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DESCRIPTION
The opportunity to discuss William Shakespeare’s lyrical works in terms of structure and
content, particularly his sonnets, offers the tools for further academic research on the topic as
well as the possibility for its multiple applications in the classroom environment.
PREPARATION
Before starting the study of this theme, just make sure you have: a handout or digital copy of the
Shakespearean sonnets (5, 12, 18, 122, 154); access to an online dictionary – we recommend
The Merriam-Webster´s online dictionary – and online access to the Sonnets, available at
Shakespeare´s Sonnets Website.
GOALS
SECTION 1
To identify the structure of a sonnet and the differences between the Petrarchan Sonnet and the
Shakespearean sonnet
SECTION 2
To compare sonnets based on the analyses of structural elements
SECTION 3
To recognize the sonnet within the Shakespearean play and the importance of the sonneteer as
a character
WARM-UP
Throughout this Unit, we are going to discuss William Shakespeare’s poems – particularly his
sequence of 154 sonnets. What does it mean, then, to talk about Shakespeare’s poetical voice?
Are we referring to the artful verses found in his plays or are we rather referring to the actual
poems he wrote? Here, we will focus on the structured and concise voice of Shakespeare’s
linguistic wit when it comes to the sonnet.
The sonnet, this fourteen-liner poetic form, became highly popular in the late sixteenth century
Elizabethan society. Once it came to England in its printed form by the hands of Sir Thomas
Wyatt (1503-1542) and Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586), the sonnets turned out to be an elite taste
almost from its first days circulating in court. Since the printed text was the means by which the
sonnet – as well as any poetry written at the time – traveled through the halls of London, it
inevitably distinguished itself in terms of status from its bastard sister, playwriting. Shakespeare,
being both a theater man and a powerful poet, lived in between the ephemerous art of theater
and the permanent art of poetry. In the end, as Jonathan F. S. Post writes in his Shakespeare’s
Sonnets and Poems: a very short introduction (2017): “Shakespeare wrote poems to connect
with the elite and the financial rewards that might come from patronage. He wrote drama to
survive” (POST, 2017, Loc561).
SECTION 1
 To identify the structure of a sonnet and the differences between the Petrarchan
Sonnet and the Shakespearean sonnet
THE SONNET’S ORIGINS
It is possible to trace the origins of the sonnet, already structured in its fourteen lines, back to
the thirteenth century, at the Norman court of Frederick II in Sicily. Not very long after its birth,
the sonnet migrated to Italy and was adopted by artists such as Dante Alighieri in La Vita Nuova
(1293-1294).
However, the sonnet became a popular means of expression when the Italian poet Francesco
Petrarca published his collection of 366 poems called Canzoniere or ‘Songbook’, containing
poems ranging from 1330 to 1374. Its popularity grew in such haste that the sonnet form quickly
became fashionable in most countries throughout Europe – just to give a few examples, we
could mention Spain, France, and, after a while, even England.
Petrarca’s major theme in his sonnet cycle was the sonneteer’s praise for Laura (a name which
plays with the homophone “laurel”, allowing the association between winning that woman’s love
and receiving the laurel crown which confirms the poet’s greatness). Thus, Petrarca inaugurated
one of the most recurrent tropes in the tradition of sonnet writing, the desire and longing for the
beloved.
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Image: Unknown author, Wikimedia commons, Public domain
 Francesco Petrarca
TROPES
Tropes are motifs, recurring themes in literature.
In terms of its structure, the Petrarchan sonnet:
has got 14 lines;
has got a rhyme scheme that is usually in 2 “closed” quatrains (ABBA, ABBA);
These quatrains are followed by a twist of thought (in Italian, volta) structured in 3 new rhymes
with varied possibilities of rhyme scheme (e.g., CDE, CDE; or CD, CD, EE).
A good example of a Petrarchan sonnet can be seen in Sonnet 1 from Sir Philip Sidney’s most
famous book of sonnets, Astrophel and Stella (1591):
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY’S ASTROPHEL AND STELLA
Sonnet 1
TRANSCRIPTION
Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,
That she, dear she, might take some pleasure of my pain,
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain,—
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe,
Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain,
Oft turning others’ leaves, to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburned brain.
But words came halting forth, wanting Invention’s stay:
Invention, Nature’s child, fled step-dame Study’s blows,
And others’ feet still seemed but strangers in my way.
Thus great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite:
“Fool,” said my Muse to me, “look in thy heart and write.”
( A )
( B )
( A )
( B )
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( A )
( B )
( A )
( B )
( C )
( D )
( C )
( D )
( E )
( E )
 COMMENTS
It is not difficult to spot that, beyond noticing in Sonnet 1 the rhyme scheme following the
Petrarchan structure outlined above, the volta is quite openly indicated by the author’s choice to
start the first verse after the “closed” pair of quatrains (ABAB, ABAB) by using the adversative
“But”. Thus, the poet picks up the pace of the last six verses directly towards the final couplet:
the crowning of the writer’s inspiration; the flagrant moment when the Muse speaks to him.
THE PETRARCHAN SONNET’S
IMPORTATION TO ENGLAND
Sir Philip Sidney was not only one of the most prominent English poets, but he was also one of
the people who helped bringing the sonnet form to England. That being said, there were two
major poets who – during the sixteenth century – turned out to be most commonly associated
with the Petrarchan sonnet’s tradition as well as its transplantation to their own country:
 
Photo: Philip Sidney / Project Gutenberg / Public domain
 The title page of Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophel and Stella.
Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503 – 1542)
 
Image: The National Portrait Gallery / Wikimedia commons / Public domain
Sir Philip Sidney (1554 – 1586).
 
Photo: The National Portrait Gallery / Wikimedia commons / Public domain
Both of them spent a long time in France and Italy and when they travelled back to England
their luggage was full of the poetic techniques they found in the European continent –
especially, the linguistic and rhetorical strategies related to the Petrarchan sonnet. It is therefore
widely accepted that Wyatt as well as Sidney are to blame for the sonnet’s momentum in
England.
Some researchers also point out that Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-1547) during the
kingdom of Henry VIII (1491-1547), helped introduce and establish the high status of the sonnet
within the English court. Supporting this argument, one may look into Songes and Sonnets, also
known as Tottel´s Miscellany, published in 1557, which contains 20 sonnets written by Sir
Thomas Wyatt and 16 written by the Earl of Surrey – many of those are literal translations from
Petrarca.
 
Photo: William Scrots / Wikimedia commons / Public domain
 Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey at age 29.
Despite some differences about form, Howard, Wyatt, and Sidney’s sonnets successfully
established the thematic tradition which other Elizabethan poets such as Edmund Spenser
(1552-1599) and Shakespeare himself would pick up to deal with in their own sonnet
sequences. This tradition involved:
MOST OFTEN A PROFESSION OF LOVE, DEVELOPING
OUT OF A LONG TRADITION OF EPIDEICTIC
DISCOURSE INVOLVING PRAISE AND BLAME
(INCLUDING SELF-BLAME, OF WHICH SHAKESPEARE
WAS ITS SUBTLE, AGONIZING MASTER), AND OFTEN
UTILIZING A GRAMMAR OF AMATORYSUFFERING,
STOCK IMAGERY, AND FAMILIAR SITUATIONS, AGAIN
SUBSTANTIALLY VARIED AND MADE VIGOROUSLY
EXPLICIT BY SHAKESPEARE.
(POST, 2017, Loc1743-1756)
 
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IT REMAINS TO BE SAID THAT, WHATEVER THE APPROACH
GIVEN BY THE POET, THE SONNET FORM CAN BE
DESCRIBED AS THE FRAME OF AN INDIVIDUAL’S EMOTIONAL
LIFE. BE IT A MOMENT OF SUFFERING FOR THE
UNACHIEVABLE BELOVED OR A MOMENT OF PASSIONATE
EROTIC DESIRE, THE SONNETS’ STRUCTURE INVOLVES THE
ESTABLISHMENT OF AN IMAGE, OR AN EMOTION, AND A
SUDDEN CHANGE OF WHAT WAS ESTABLISHED – THE TWIST
OF THE HEART, OF THE BODY, AS WELL AS A TWIST OF THE
LANGUAGE IN PLAY – IN ORDER TO GET TO THE FINAL
COUPLET, CLOSING THE FRAMED SITUATION.
 
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Photo: Martin Charles Hatch/Shutterstock.com
THE ELIZABETHAN SONNETEERS
The sonnet fashion in England lasted for around twenty years: from 1580 until the death of
Elizabeth I, in 1603, with Shakespeare in the wake of his brilliancy.
 
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They circulated in manuscripts, almost always with specific addressees. They were almost
letters in verses but had to count on the grandiloquent final couplet, similar to any other
Petrarchan sonnet.
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Nevertheless, it is interesting to notice how Elizabethan sonneteers are not exclusively chained
to the Petrarchan structure of the sonnet – it was not unusual to find hybrid forms of poetic
expression within the sonnet tradition, as we can see for example in some of the poems written
by the already mentioned Edmund Spenser.
For instance, take a look at Sonnet 30, extracted from Spenser’s sonnet cycle entitled Amoretti
(1595):
SPENSER’S AMORETTI
Sonnet 30
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TRANSCRIPTION
My Love is like to ice, and I to fire: ( A )
How comes it then that this her cold so great ( B )
Is not dissolved through my so hot desire, ( A )
But harder grows the more I her entreat? ( B )
Or how comes it that my exceeding heat ( B )
Is not allayed by her heart-frozen cold, ( C )
But that I burn much more in boiling sweat, ( B )
And feel my flames augmented manifold? ( C )
What more miraculous thing may be told, ( C )
That fire, which all things melts, should harden ice, ( D )
And ice, which is congeal’d with senseless cold, ( C )
Should kindle fire by wonderful device? ( D )
Such is the power of love in gentle mind, ( E )
That it can alter all the course of kind. ( E )
TRANSCRIPTION
My Love is like to ice, and I to fire:
How comes it then that this her cold so great
Is not dissolved through my so hot desire,
But harder grows the more I her entreat?
Or how comes it that my exceeding heat
Is not allayed by her heart-frozen cold,
But that I burn much more in boiling sweat,
And feel my flames augmented manifold?
What more miraculous thing may be told,
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That fire, which all things melts, should harden ice,
And ice, which is congeal’d with senseless cold,
Should kindle fire by wonderful device?
Such is the power of love in gentle mind,
That it can alter all the course of kind.
( A )
( B )
( A )
( B )
( B )
( C )
( B )
( C )
( C )
( D )
( C )
( D )
( E )
( E )
 COMMENTS
Not straightforward Petrarchan in its structure, Spenser’s Sonnet 30 – together with most of
Shakespeare’s sonnets as we will see – is a poem that seems to be interested in a more varied
rhyme scheme, as well as a more subtle volta. In this case, the shift of thought the poem
proposes is basically the confirmation of the images planted earlier in the sonnet. Thus, the
double image of ice and fire can only be approached by questions that do not wish to close the
comparison between the sonneteer’s love to fire and the beloved’s love to ice in any definite
interpretation. It is, however, the final couplet that is there to tell the reader that those
metaphorical interrogations perform “the power of love in gentle mind/ That it can alter all the
course of kind” (SPENSER, 1595).
THE SONNET
Let us review the main points about the sonnet so far?
 
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THE SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET
Before entering the realm of the Shakespearean sonnets, it is important to highlight that,
according to Stephen Orgel (2006, p.1) in his introductory study to The Sonnets in the New
Cambridge Shakespeare collection.
 
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“IN HIS OWN TIME, SHAKESPEARE WAS MUCH BETTER
KNOWN TO THE READING PUBLIC AS A POET THAN A
PLAYWRIGHT”.
 
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To support this statement, Orgel recovers the number of editions that Shakespeare’s narrative
poems (Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece) had during the late sixteenth and early
seventeenth century in comparison to the plays’ circulation among readers during the same
period.
Venus and Adonis, alone, “went through ten editions before [Shakespeare’s] death in 1616, and
another six before 1640. His other long narrative poem The Rape of Lucrece was less popular,
but it too circulated far more widely than any of the plays” (ORGEL, 2006, p. 1).
 
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 Venus and Adonis, Titian, 1545-75
 
Image: Ticiano / Wikimedia commons / Public domain
 The Rape of Lucrece, Titian, 1571
This is interesting to our discussion of the upcoming sonnets – which were not as edited and
printed as Shakespeare’s narrative poems but still circulated – because it clearly marks the
distinction between the heterogeneous and not always alphabetized theater-goers on the
Southbank of London and the (mostly) court readers who admired Shakespeare as a poet.
THE THEATER-GOES
This group of people only needed to “lend their ears” to the Globe’s actors.
THE COURT READERS
This other group had probably attended grammar schools and/or tutoring in order to open a
book and read it.
GLOBE THEATRE
Famous London theater in which William Shakespeare’s plays were performed.
Thus, in 1609, London editor Thomas Thorpe publishes Shakespeare’s Sonnets in quarto
under the headline “Never before Imprinted.” The truthfulness of this inscription may be
contested nowadays, especially after researchers found out a brief commentary on the sonnets
written by Francis Meres (1565-1647) in his book Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury (1598). It
praises Shakespeare’s “sugared Sonnets among his private friends”, confirming the
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speculations about his sonnets already being in circulation right after the time Sidney and Wyatt
wrote their contributions to the English version of the sonnet.
 
Photo: William Shakespeare / Wikimedia commons / Public domain
 Thomas Thorpe’s edition of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, published in 1609.
QUARTO
The terms quarto and folio are usually used in the context of Shakespeare to refer to
different editions of his work. Quarto refers to the size of a book. A sheet is folded over
twice, so each sheet consists of four leaves. Eight pages, then, are produced per sheet. A
typical quarto is a bit bigger than the average hardcover book today.
Besides their distribution amid the closed circle of Shakespeare’s “private friends”, two sonnets
(138 and 144) appeared in William Jaggard’s miscellaneous collection of poems published in
1599, The Passionate Pilgrim. The first edition of this group of poems did not survive, but it is
significant that the book’s title page ascribed it to Shakespeare.
That is not to say that there is proof of Shakespeare’s involvement with this publication – that is
because, despite having twenty poems in total, only five were written by Shakespeare; the two
sonnets already mentioned and three extracts from Love’s Labour’s Lost, mingled with various
other Elizabethan poems collected in the book.
 
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BOTH EXAMPLES, THEN, MERES AND JAGGARD, ATTEST TO
THE FACT THAT AT LEAST SOME OF SHAKESPEARE’S
SONNETS WERE ALREADY IN CIRCULATION AT THE MOMENT
OF THORPE’S 1609 QUARTO EDITION.
 
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 After a while, researchers confirmed that ThomasThorpe’s edition of the sonnets was not a
case of copy or piracy – as it was common in Elizabethan times.
 Therefore, by establishing Thorpe as a qualified editor, who had already published plays
in quarto such as Jonson’s Volpone and Sejanus, stylistic intentionality is brought up as a tool
that should be accounted for when dealing with this edition.
For instance, take a look at the famous dedication to “the only begetter of these insuing
sonnets. Mr. W. H.”:
This so-called “Dedication” found in Thorpe’s 1609 edition is the source of a large debate
among critics regarding William Shakespeare’s addressee on the context of this publication.
However, it is possible that Thorpe himself placed the “Dedication” there in order to obscurely
profess his or Shakespeare’s love for Mr. W. H., a possible patronage. A lot of speculation
surrounded those two capital letters – from possible names such as the androgynous Henry
Wriothesly (1573-1624), living in the court of James I, all the way to William Hathaway,
Shakespeare’s stepbrother.
 
Image: Unknown author / Wikimedia commons / Public domain
 Thomas Thorpe’s edition of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, published in 1609.
That is why Stephen Orgel’s interesting proposition comes in handy for us:
IT IS PERHAPS BEST TO READ W.H. AS STANDING
FOR “WHOEVER HE” (MAY BE) – AND, THEREFORE,
AS AN ACKNOWLEDGEMENT THAT THORPE KNEW
MORE ABOUT THE ‘BEGGETER’ OF THE SONNETS
THAN WE DO.
(ORGEL, 2017, p. 6)
This open-ended solution to the “Dedication” helps us to approach it unbiased by unconfirmed
historical suppositions.
 
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Often regarded as a collection, the Shakespearean sonnets are organized (a bit arbitrarily) in
154 poems. The order which the sequence still follows in editions nowadays does not
necessarily correspond to the order of these sonnets’ composition, especially when one
remembers their earlier circulation in a manuscript. Likewise, there is no plot development
throughout the series, but the sonneteer’s images and language seem more and more to create
and feed the suffering, the blame, the desire, the shame of his desire, of his love towards
the beloved one.
Roughly speaking, from Sonnet 1 to Sonnet 126 we could organize a large group of poems
dedicated to “the Fair Youth” – a beautiful boy with whom the sonneteer gets involved sexually
and emotionally, before being left by him.

Following that, ranging from Sonnet 127 to Sonnet 154, we find the last few poems of the series
dedicated to “The Dark Lady” – a “dun” colored woman, often contrasted with the Petrarchan
ideals of praise for Laura in his Canzoniere.
LEARNING CHECK
1. WE DISCUSSED DIFFERENT FORMAL DESCRIPTIONS OF THE
SONNET AS A POETIC STRUCTURE. IDENTIFY THE OPTION CONTAINING
THE CORRECT FORMAL DESCRIPTION OF THE TRADITIONAL SONNET
STRUCTURE FOUND, FOR EXAMPLE, IN FRANCESCO PETRARCA’S
CANZONIERE.
A) The Petrarchan sonnet is composed of twelve lines, divided into three “closed” quatrains and
one couplet.
B) The Petrarchan sonnet is composed of twelve lines, divided into one “closed” quatrains and
two couplets.
C) The Petrarchan sonnet is composed of fourteen lines, divided into two “closed” quatrains and
three variously rhymed couplets.
D) The Petrarchan sonnet is composed of thirteen lines, divided into three “closed” quatrains
and three variously rhymed couplets.
E) The Petrarchan sonnet is composed of eleven lines, divided into three “closed” quatrains and
no variously rhymed couplets.
2. WE STUDIED HOW THE PETRARCHAN SONNET WAS TRANSPLANTED
TO ENGLAND WITH THE HELP OF POETS SUCH AS SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
AND THOMAS WYATT IN THE 1590S. LATER, EDMUND SPENSER, ON THE
PAGES OF HIS ASTROPHEL AND STELLA, EXPLORED THE SONNET
FORM BY USING NEW RHYME SCHEMES – WHICH DISTINGUISHED
HIMSELF FROM AN OBJECTIVE REPRODUCTION OF THE PETRARCHAN
SONNET. HOWEVER, ALMOST EVERY SONNETEER INSCRIBES THE
SAME GENERAL TOPIC IN THEIR POEMS. MARK THE OPTION WHICH
CORRECTLY DESCRIBES THIS TOPIC.
A) The speaker of the sonnet most commonly praises his beloved.
B) The speaker of the sonnet most commonly scorns other poets.
C) The speaker of the sonnet most commonly talks about his family.
D) The speaker of the sonnet most commonly praises the church.
E) The speaker of the sonnet most commonly praises his editor.
GABARITO
1. We discussed different formal descriptions of the Sonnet as a poetic structure. Identify
the option containing the correct formal description of the traditional sonnet structure
found, for example, in Francesco Petrarca’s Canzoniere.
Option "C " is correct.
 
Even though the fourteen-line sonnet was already a reality in the thirteenth century, it was not
until Petrarca published his Canzoniere that it became a popular means of expression. The
Petrarchan sonnet is composed of fourteen lines divided into two “closed” quatrains and three
variously rhymed couplets.
2. We studied how the Petrarchan sonnet was transplanted to England with the help of
poets such as Sir Philip Sidney and Thomas Wyatt in the 1590s. Later, Edmund Spenser,
on the pages of his Astrophel and Stella, explored the sonnet form by using new rhyme
schemes – which distinguished himself from an objective reproduction of the Petrarchan
sonnet. However, almost every sonneteer inscribes the same general topic in their
poems. Mark the option which correctly describes this topic.
Option "A " is correct.
 
The topics approached by the sonnets hardly fall far from this appraisal of the beloved, what is
important to notice is how each poet gives his or her own twist to that topic – such as
Shakespeare does.
SECTION 2
 To compare sonnets based on the analyses of structural elements
TOOLS FOR ANALYSIS OF THE POEMS
After getting familiar with the Elizabethan context in which Shakespeare wrote his poems, we
can now face some of the sonnets’ specific textual playfulness – such as its rhyme scheme, its
metrical features, as well as the linguistic conversations between one sonnet and another. Thus,
a section that avows itself with the proposition to analyze Shakespeare’s sonnets must,
necessarily, offer some tools to sharpen our eye as readers of Bard’s poetry.
 
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We have investigated the Petrarchan sonnet’s traditional rhyme scheme (usually ABBAABBA,
CDECDE, or CDCDEE), which was reworked in England by poets such as Spenser.

Shakespeare, alternatively, provides his reader with a sonnet structure that divides itself into
three differently rhymed quatrains (ABAB, CDCD, EFEF) and a closing couplet (GG) containing
a new rhyme.
 IMPORTANT
Also, it is important to underscore how both alliteration – the repetition of consonant sounds –
and assonance – the repetition of vocalic sounds – play important roles in the complexification
of the sonnets’ usage of language. It is often through those two strategies, embedded within the
metrics and the rhymes, that meaning meets form in enormously powerful and prolific ways.
 
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Whenever one is reading the Shakespearean verse (and that also counts for the plays) it is
possible to notice a preference for the iambic pentameter as a framework for his poetry.
 
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This metrical scheme is organized in such a way that each verse is composed of five syllables
following a pattern of alternation between an unstressed syllable and a stressed one.
 
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This pattern of short and long syllables is what gives rhythm to poetry, a technique that
Shakespeare has largely proved to dominate.
 
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That is why it is not recommended to read Shakespeare looking for closed formulas. In fact, it is
rather interesting to anticipate that his verse will twist the traditional iambic pentameter at some
points and, thus, guess which words should be worthy of the reader’s closer attention.
It remains to be said, then, that Shakespeare’s sonnet cycle has been divided again and againinto major and minor topics. Bearing this in mind, the five sonnets (Sonnets 5, 12, 18, 122, 154)
which we will be analyzing shortly cover the most important topics for this Unit:
 
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Time’s unstoppable stride towards death
 
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Nature’s and humans’ ever-changing appearance
 
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Love/desire which must deal with Time’s inevitable march.
If it is true, then, as Jonathan F. Post (2017) says, that one should not read each sonnet alone,
but people should actually read the connections among them, the aforementioned topics do not
exhaust what the reader may find in the Shakespearean sonnet.
SHAKESPEARE’S SONNET 5
TRANSCRIPTION
Those hours, that with gentle work did frame ( A )
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The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell, ( B )
Will play the tyrants to the very same ( A )
And that unfair which fairly doth excel; ( B )
For never-resting time leads summer on ( C )
To hideous winter, and confounds him there; ( D )
Sap checked with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone, ( C )
Beauty o'er-snowed and bareness everywhere: ( D )
Then were not summer's distillation left, ( E )
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass, ( F )
Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft, ( E )
Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was: ( F )
But flowers distilled, though they with winter meet, ( G )
Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet. ( G )
TRANSCRIPTION
Those hours, that with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,
Will play the tyrants to the very same
And that unfair which fairly doth excel;
For never-resting time leads summer on
To hideous winter, and confounds him there;
Sap checked with frost, and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o'er-snowed and bareness everywhere:
Then were not summer's distillation left,
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it, nor no remembrance what it was:
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But flowers distilled, though they with winter meet,
Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.
( A )
( B )
( A )
( B )
( C )
( D )
( C )
( D )
( E )
( F )
( E )
( F )
( G )
( G )
1
This sonnet’s thematic approach of the ceaseless change promoted by Time (“tyrant”) seems
to draw on Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The sonneteer understands that Time’s powers can be
directed towards the creation of a youthful beauty (“The lovely gaze where every eye doth
dwell”), as the addressee is referred to in the first two verses of the sonnet, but he also
understands that Time can easily take away that fairness – as a “tyrant” would do, depriving of
beauty him who possesses it in excess. Thus, the sonneteer successfully establishes the trope
of Time as a devouring force, which can concede youth as much as it can take youth away
because ageing and change are inevitable.
2
An image of natural corruption works next as a metaphorical illustration of this powerful entity
(“For never-resting time leads summer on/ To hideous winter and confounds him there”). Then,
from the covered image of “Beauty o’ersnowed” to the concrete statement of “bareness every
where”, the verses intertwine with the sonnets’ common topic of procreation (“bareness” also
meaning unfertile here), which ranges from the first sonnet in the sequence all the way to
Sonnet 17. Those are poems in which the sonneteer ponders if it is possible for the Fair Youth’s
beauty to continue living despite Time’s eradicating force – be it preserved through procreation,
an equally beautiful child; be it through the poet’s memory, though remembrance can also fall
prey to Time; or a continuance on the sonneteer’s own poetry.
3
After the first two quatrains mark the change of seasons from summer to “hideous winter”, the
image which enters the scene is that of a perfume – “A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass”,
capable of retaining the substance/essence of that (summer/ beauty) which on the outside will
fade. That process of “distillation”, however, is bare in the sense that it cannot lead beauty
neither to its continuance nor to its reproduction, only to an illusory scent of what its substance
once was (“Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft”). In conclusion, trying to preserve the
substance of a beautiful flower or a beautiful season may work momentarily, but only
one’s offspring may preserve the Fair Youth’s actual beauty.
SHAKESPEARE’S SONNET 12
TRANSCRIPTION
When I do count the clock that tells the time, ( A )
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night; ( B )
When I behold the violet past prime, ( A )
And sable curls, all silvered o'er with white; ( B )
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When lofty trees I see barren of leaves, ( C )
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd, ( D )
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves, ( C )
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard, ( D )
Then of thy beauty do I question make, ( E )
That thou among the wastes of time must go, ( F )
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake ( E )
And die as fast as they see others grow; ( F )
And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence ( G )
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence. ( G )
TRANSCRIPTION
When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls, all silvered o'er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves,
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,
Then of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow;
And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.
( A )
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( B )
( A )
( B )
( C )
( D )
( C )
( D )
( E )
( F )
( E )
( F )
( G )
( G )
1
This sonnet, embarking on the trope of the “never-resting time” (Sonnet 5), starts with a series
of occlusive consonants in its first verse which creates an alliteration similar to the ticking of a
clock (“When I do count the clock that tells the time”). Having thus established inexorable Time
as the framework of the sonnet, it follows that the sonneteer pairs up this movement of decay to
Nature’s changeability as well as human’s ageing: first, the clock that ticks the “brave” day away
fades into “hideous” night (an adjective already used on Sonnet 5 in association with seasonal
change); second, the flowers rotting after their full bloom (“violet past prime”) are equaled to the
beholding of young beauty turning into old white-haired age (“sable curls all silvered o’er with
white”); and it goes on to the trees with their changing leaves.
2
As readers, the volta is markedly pointed out in this poem by the adverb “Then”, which turns
away from the images of ageing and decay towards the poet and his Fair Youth. It happens so
that the sonneteer’s inevitable conclusion is that Nature’s relationship to “never-resting” Time is
not so different from human’s relationship to it. Both the sonneteer and, most importantly, the
Fair Youth, his beloved, are moving towards “the wastes of time”. No solution seems good
enough to make a stand before “Time’s scythe”, except procreation as a means to face it (“to
brave him”) against Death – here is the poet, making his point once again.
SHAKESPEARE’S SONNET 18
TRANSCRIPTION
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? ( A )
Thou art more lovely and more temperate: ( B )
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, ( A )
And summer's lease hath all too short a date: ( B )
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, ( C )
And often is his gold complexion dimmed, ( D )
And every fair from fair sometime declines, ( C )
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:( D )
But thy eternal summer shall not fade, ( E )
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st, ( F )
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade, ( E )
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st, ( F )
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, ( G )
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. ( G )
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TRANSCRIPTION
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
( A )
( B )
( A )
( B )
( C )
( D )
( C )
( D )
( E )
( F )
( E )
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( F )
( G )
( G )
1
This is the first poem after a short series (Sonnets 1-17 ) of sonnets discussing procreation
as the only solution to the inevitable movement of beauty towards “the wastes of time”. Sonnet
18 pairs up with Sonnet 19 to argue that, “in verse”, the Fair Youth shall also outlive age and
decay. In general, the poem draws on the same comparisons between Nature’s seasonal
changes and the declining beauty of the beloved because of his ageing. However, after the first
two quatrains play on summer’s shortness as well as its “intemperate” (or unstable) heat, the
sonnet employs a clearly outlined volta with the adversative “But” and its continuance towards
the final couplet.
2
The repetition of the word “eternal” leads us to connect the promise of “eternal summer” with the
“eternal lines” of the sonneteer’s verse, providing the groundwork on which the sonnet ends.
Not any longer calling Nature to his comparisons, the poet chooses to emphasize human life
(“So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,/ So long lives this, and this gives life to thee”)
as the parameter for the beloved’s eternal life in his verses. “Time’s Scythe” will not work to
erase the sonneteer’s words. In fact, it will only give way to the expansion of his poetry’s
achievements and, by consequence, the Fair Youth’s beauty immortalized in his “eternal lines”.
SHAKESPEARE’S SONNET 122
TRANSCRIPTION
Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain ( A )
Full charactered with lasting memory, ( B )
Which shall above that idle rank remain, ( A )
Beyond all date, even to eternity: ( B )
Or, at the least, so long as brain and heart ( C )
Have faculty by nature to subsist; ( D )
Till each to razed oblivion yield his part ( C )
Of thee, thy record never can be missed. ( D )
That poor retention could not so much hold, ( E )
Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score; ( F )
Therefore to give them from me was I bold, ( E )
To trust those tables that receive thee more: ( F )
To keep an adjunct to remember thee ( G )
Were to import forgetfulness in me. ( G )
TRANSCRIPTION
Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain
Full charactered with lasting memory,
Which shall above that idle rank remain,
Beyond all date, even to eternity:
Or, at the least, so long as brain and heart
Have faculty by nature to subsist;
Till each to razed oblivion yield his part
Of thee, thy record never can be missed.
That poor retention could not so much hold,
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Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score;
Therefore to give them from me was I bold,
To trust those tables that receive thee more:
To keep an adjunct to remember thee
Were to import forgetfulness in me.
( A )
( B )
( A )
( B )
( C )
( D )
( C )
( D )
( E )
( F )
( E )
( F )
( G )
( G )
1
The major idea played out on Sonnet 122 is that a lover’s brain and heart is a better place to
remember the “real image” of the beloved than any notes made on a (“table”) notebook, such as
the one gifted – probably by the Fair Youth – to the sonneteer. Thus, both imageries about
brain and heart should receive special attention because they will feed that “lasting memory”
– i.e., the mind’s eye towards eternity.
2
Quite roughly, the second quatrain brings the reader back to reality, and with it comes the
perception that one’s mind is not exempt from decay and death. Although immortality is what
these “eternal lines’” aim at, the corporeal brain in which these memories were imparted is
nevertheless mortal.
3
The following quatrain goes back to the comparison between remembering the beloved’s “true”
image on one’s brain and on the pages of a notebook which, at this point, is linguistically
associated with the mechanical register and measurement of love (“Nor need I tallies thy dear
love to score” – those “tallies” are referring to the wooden planks on which debts were scored).
Therefore, this notebook (“thy tables”) is not fit for holding such an image of perfection (“That
poor retention could not so much hold”).
4
Its final couplet, stressing the implications of the sonnet’s main comparison, validates the
superiority of the mind’s eye when it comes to remembering the beloved. Afterwards, it reveals
the poet’s self-moralizing gesture – that is to say, those two ending verses contest the value of
keeping a notebook about the beloved in order to immortalize him. If the sonneteer does so, he
is to blame and that “Were to import forgetfulness in [him]”. Because the brain needs no
“adjunct”, it only demands that image once so dear to the poet and the rest it leaves to “lasting
memory” to work out.
SHAKESPEARE’S SONNET 154
TRANSCRIPTION
The little Love-god lying once asleep, ( A )
Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand, ( B )
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Whilst many nymphs that vowed chaste life to keep ( A )
Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand ( B )
The fairest votary took up that fire ( C )
Which many legions of true hearts had warmed; ( D )
And so the General of hot desire ( C )
Was, sleeping, by a virgin hand disarmed. ( D )
This brand she quenched in a cool well by, ( E )
Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual, ( F )
Growing a bath and healthful remedy, ( E )
For men diseased; but I, my mistress' thrall, ( F )
Came there for cure and this by that I prove, ( G )
Love's fire heats water, water cools not love. ( G )
TRANSCRIPTION
The little Love-god lying once asleep,
Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,
Whilst many nymphs that vowed chaste life to keep
Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand
The fairest votary took up that fire
Which many legions of true hearts had warmed;
And so the General of hot desire
Was, sleeping, by a virgin hand disarmed.
This brand she quenched in a cool well by,
Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual,
Growing a bath and healthful remedy,
For men diseased; but I, my mistress' thrall,
Came there for cure and this by that I prove,
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Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.
( A )
( B )
( A )
( B )
( C )
( D )
( C )
( D )
( E )
( F )
( E )
( F )
( G )
( G )
1
Offspring of an unknown source, sonnets’ 153 and 154 are a pair of anacreontic poems – they
hardly fit in the sonnets’ general cycle. Earlier critics even considered that those last two
sonnets could have been authored by someone else, but that is not the case for contemporary
criticism on Shakespeare. Its subject matter involves Cupid’s (“Little love-God”) arrows of “hot
desire” and love as an incurable disease.
2
The situation narrated involves Cupid’s sleep and his “heart-inflaming brand”, i.e., the flames of
hot desire, lying down next to him. From the second quatrain onwards, the military metaphor
plays both on Cupid as the general of our passions and on the brand’s power to warm “many
legions”. However, it is in the sonnet’s last six verses that the poetstarts looking at love as if it
were a disease.
3
It is this volta that connects Sonnet 154 with its pair in the sequence, 153. Still, it is interesting
that the shift of thought proposed here marks the sonnet cycle’s coda (The concluding part of
the poem.) – if one takes for granted the 1609 quarto edition of the Sonnets. This ends in a
remarkable conclusion to the sonneteer’s discourse on love.
4
Remembering the sonnets analyzed in this section, the sonneteer’s love started as the praise
for a beloved man who should beat “never-resting” Time by any means possible – be it
procreation, be it poetry – and it moved on to the sonneteer’s self-blame because of his
memory’s incapacity to fulfill what love and desire towards the Fair Youth urged him to do –
immortalize the beloved’s image.
5
In the end, mortality, decay, Death, and the inexorable passage of Time envelop the five
sonnets hereby approached and the last verses from Sonnet 154 only try to remind the reader
that love can be a disease for which there is no easy treatment – not even a medicinal bath
prepared with Cupid’s own brand (“Love's fire heats water, water cools not love”).
THE SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET
Do you want to learn more about "Time’s unstoppable stride towards death"? Let's analyze
some Shakespearean sonnets!
LEARNING CHECK
1. WE DISCUSSED ALLITERATION AND ASSONANCE AS TWO FORMAL
STRATEGIES WHICH THE SONNETEER COULD USE THROUGHOUT HIS
POEMS. MARK THE OPTION WITH CONTAINS A SIGNIFICANT PATTERN
OF ALLITERATION FOUND IN SONNET 12.
A) “And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence” (line 13)
B) “Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual” (line 10)
C) “Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?” (line 2)
D) “When I do count the clock that tells the time” (line 1)
E) “Beyond all date, even to eternity” (line 4)
2. OUR DISCUSSION REVOLVED AROUND THE TOPIC OF TIME AS THIS
POWER THAT DEVOURS NATURE AND HUMANITY, FORCING THEM TO
DECAY, AGE AND CHANGE. MARK THE OPTION WHICH CORRECTLY
COMPARES/ CONTRASTS THE SONNETEER’S DIFFERENT
APPROACHES ON THE TOPIC OF THE “NEVER-RESTING” TIME
CONSIDERING THE SONNETS ANALYZED.
A) Mostly, Shakespeare’s sonnets approach Time as a dying force that cannot beat true love.
B) Mostly, Shakespeare’s sonnets approach Time as a helpful force that allows the lovers to
mature into partnership.
C) Most times, Shakespeare’s sonnets approach Time as a devouring force that promotes
decay and change.
D) Mostly, Shakespeare’s sonnets approach Time as a tremendous force that affects only
people and animals.
E) Mostly, Shakespeare’s sonnets approach Time as a force created by man to control his
itinerary.
GABARITO
1. We discussed alliteration and assonance as two formal strategies which the sonneteer
could use throughout his poems. Mark the option with contains a significant pattern of
alliteration found in sonnet 12.
Option "D " is correct.
 
Just remember that alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds, and the above verse (d)
exemplifies this well with the repetition of the /t/ consonant.
2. Our discussion revolved around the topic of Time as this power that devours Nature
and humanity, forcing them to decay, age and change. Mark the option which correctly
compares/ contrasts the sonneteer’s different approaches on the topic of the “never-
resting” Time considering the sonnets analyzed.
Option "C " is correct.
 
Option “C” summarizes how Time is perceived and depicted in Shakespeare’s poems. The
three main topics discussed in the section were: time’s unstoppable stride towards death;
nature’s and humans’ ever-changing appearance; and love/desire which must deal with Time’s
inevitable march.
SECTION 3
 To recognize the sonnet within the Shakespearean play and the importance of the
sonneteer as a character
CONVERSATIONS BETWEEN
SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS AND PLAYS
SHAKESPEAREAN SONNETS AND PLOT
Discussing William Shakespeare as a poet involves more than looking into his sonnets.
As we have mentioned before, Shakespeare wrote some narrative poems – from which Venus
and Adonis and Rape of Lucrece were the best known (and reprinted) at his time – that helped
the Bard to establish his name as a poet among the elite circles of the English court. After all, it
was through poetry that one aspired to permanence.
The printed book of poems, in contrast with the ephemera enactment of a play, marked a desire
to be read by educated readers – those of whom, in Elizabethan England, when most of
Shakespeare’s poems were written, represented an elite audience. That explains, for instance,
the elaborate cover of Venus and Adonis as we can see in the following image.
 
Photo: Richard Field / Wikimedia commons / Public domain
 Cover of the first edition of Venus and Adonis, printed in London, 1593
Thus, since his legacy for us, readers and playgoers of the twenty-first century, is majorly
inscribed by the cultural impact of his plays, it is interesting to observe how the shaping of the
plot seems to be an always instinctual way of reading Shakespeare.
 COMMENTS
One example of this interest in plot regarding the sonnets comes together with their rediscovery
by nineteenth century criticism.
Critics have drawn on the dedication page by calling attention to “the only begetter” of the
poems, “Mr. W.H.”, as well as addressing the issue of Southampton’s earlier patronage of
Shakespeare’s narrative poems and how it may relate or not to the storyline implied in the
sonnets.
 LEARN MORE
Differently than Venus and Adonis, Thomas Thorpe’s 1609 edition of Shakespeare’s Sonnets
has no confirmation whatsoever of Shakespeare’s direct involvement. The latter’s dedication
page was probably written by Thorpe; and distinguishing itself from both the dedication on the
frontispiece of Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece – a dedication inflected by
Shakespeare’s patronage to Henry Wriothesley, the third Earl of Southampton – there is not
enough autobiographical information to allow the reader to look for Shakespeare’s life in the
sonnets. Yet, this has not obstructed readers’ assumptions about who should that “Mr. W.H.” be,
or how should one address the love triangle that emerges midway through the sonnet cycle.
 
Image: John de Critz / Wikimedia commons / Public Domain
 Portrait of Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton
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IS IT AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL APPROACH TO POETRY OR IS
IT, AFTER ALL, SHAKESPEARE’S STORYTELLING AS WE
HAVE SEEN ELSEWHERE IN HIS PLAYS AND NARRATIVE
POEMS?
 
Photo: Shutterstock.com
THE SONNETEER AS A CHARACTER
If the sonnets elaborate on a series of dramatized events, it is not odd to try and discover what
the storyline that connects these events is. Looking, therefore, in between the sonnets, a
generally accepted series of occurrences turns out to form shorter groups of sonnets.

The collection of 154 sonnets starts with eighteen poems in which the sonneteer, the speaker,
urges the addressee (“the Fair Youth”) to marry and, thus, have a child who can mirror eternally
his perfect beauty. This short sequence has been canonically established as the procreation
sonnets.

Following that, the sonnets go to the important pair of sonnets 19 and 20, in which – for the first
time in the full sequence – the sonneteer reveals explicitly to be in love and desiring a “Fair
Youth” of higher social status. The poet’s love for the “Fair Youth” grows heavier on him. From
this pair of sonnets onward, the sequence becomes heavily charged with language and imagery
on homosexual desire.
Shakespeare’s approach of this homoerotic relationship between the sonneteer and the “Fair
Youth” must be contextualized in order to be properly weighed here:
SODOMY WAS A CAPITAL CRIME, AND FULMINATIONS
AGAINST THE ACT WERE A STAPLE OF POLEMICAL
LITERATURE OF ALL KINDS. ANTITHEATRICAL
TRACTS ASSUMED THAT BOYS WHO PLAYED THE
WOMEN’S ROLES ON STAGE PLAYED THEM IN LIFE
AS WELL; ANTI-CATHOLIC INVECTIVE DECLARED
ECCLESIASTICALCELIBACY TO BE A COVER FOR
INSTITUTIONALIZED BUGGERY; JUDICIAL
INDICTMENTS FOR POLITICAL OR RELIGIOUS CRIMES
OFTEN INCLUDED ADDITIONAL CHARGES OF
SODOMY – INDEED, SODOMY TENDED TO SERVE AS
A GLOSS ON WHATEVER THE CULTURE CONSIDERED
WORST OR MOST THREATENING: THOSE ACCUSED
OF ATHEISM OR SEDITION WERE ALMOST
INVARIABLY DECLARED ALSO TO BE SODOMITES.
THE COROLLARY, HOWEVER, IS THAT THE CHARGE
IS ALMOST NEVER FOUND IN ISOLATION; AND, IN
FACT, THE LEGAL DEFINITION OF SODOMY WAS
EXCEEDINGLY NARROW.
(ORGEL, 2006, p. 11-12)
Orgel continues his argument by making the distinction between sodomy and homoeroticism
clear in the context of Elizabethan England. Their differences were such that both the patronage
system and the theater companies in which Shakespeare took part in his time were
fundamentally based on this brotherhood of men.
 
Photo: Shutterstock.com
 COMMENTS
Therefore, most sonnets seem to “pass” because of a strategical equivocation of language
designed by the poet – as we can see, for instance, in Sonnet 18, in which there is no indication
about the gender of the addressee.

By the time one gets to Sonnet 25, their love affair is out on the page (privately shared with us).
Thus, reciprocity seems to come into play – “Then happy I that love and am beloved” – resulting
in a relationship closer to the traditional tropes of the Petrarchan Sonnet in which to praise the
beloved was a gesture of full surrender. Slowly, then, the sonneteer offers himself as a slave to
his beloved – and the problems start to come.

For the whole stretch during which this relationship is going on, it is significant that we follow
only the sonneteer’s perspective. Therefore, it is difficult to think how everything is affecting the
Fair Youth. However, the sonneteer moves progressively from being in love, “in vassalage”
(Sonnet 26), to a feeling that “to thy [the youth’s] fair flower add the rank smell of weeds”.
Suspicion arises of the youth’s possible infidelity and their relationship becomes a complex of
harsh feelings alternating between love and hate.

Later on, beginning in sonnet 127, the sonneteer starts to refer to and address a lady who has
been infamously known as “The Dark Lady”. She, whose brown or black skin tone suggests that
she is of Italian or African descent, has been the object of much debate. Whether it is a woman
whom Shakespeare himself met on the streets of London and had an affair with or, again, a
confrontation to the Petrarchan literary convention of praising the “fair” lady Laura – a sentence
in which “fair” can ambiguously mean beautiful as well as “white-skinned”. This wordplay on
fairness enacts what Jonathan Post reflects upon: this “word that, like ‘black’, can equate
complexion with moral behavior” (POST, 2017, Loc1680).

Thus, besides counterposing this literary convention that was the Petrarchan Laura, the
sonneteer’s desire for “The Dark Lady” also works as a counterimage to the “Fair Youth” of the
first sonnets. To the extent that, in Sonnet 144 (“Two loves I have of comfort and despair”), there
emerges a love triangle between that “Fair Youth” who caused so much pain on the sonneteer
earlier in the sequence and now sustains a humiliating relationship with him.

Nevertheless, despite the sequence’s rich storyline, an attentive look into each sonnet reveals
that the present tense is the main preference of the speaker. It seems to be the present moment
that remains as the structure of a sonnet – a present feeling, a present remembrance of one’s
unresolved past, a present image to outline the emotional drawing of the poet.

Thus, the narrative becomes the background as the reader puts forth the sonnet printed on the
page. Here, it is not the story that matters most, but the sonnets’ strategies to achieve that
particular moment of feeling. If the sonneteer is, himself, a Shakespearean character, his poetic
language works so that it builds our empathy, our anger, and helps the reader unravel his story.
 
Frank Bernard Dicksee/Wikimedia commons/Public domain
 Romeo and Juliet, Frank Bernard Dicksee, 1884
THE CASE FOR ROMEO AND JULIET
To close this section, it should be mentioned that sonnets appear in Shakespeare’s plays in
different ways – sometimes revealing a moment of intimacy (as we will see in Romeo and
Juliet), sometimes displaying a solemn rite (as it is the case of Richard II’s deposition scene).
The case for Romeo and Juliet involves an important discussion brought up by Professor David
Bevington, who writes that the play is “painfully funny in the first three acts – painful not only
because one laughs so much but also because the merriment ends in deaths that seem so
avoidable” (BEVINGTON, 2006, p. 37). The play opens with a chorus shaped as a sonnet:
 
Image: Shutterstock.com
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
 
Image: Shutterstock.com
However, organized within the structural frame of the sonnet, this opening moment sounds quite
different than the sonnet sequence we have been discussing.
First, this sonnet is strictly concerned with the play which will be acted – its events and plot
twists. The ambience is set: Verona, blood, misadventure, “death-mark’d love”, rage… But also
the “stage”.

Second, by implication, the distanced voice of this sonneteer is not involved with the emotional
events it describes. He is not Romeo, he is not at all Juliet – he is the chorus of the play,
opening the scene for act one.
 ATTENTION
It is still important to notice that – even though the speaker announces the “star-crossed lovers”
story from an apparently distant perspective – the presence of Shakespeare’s sonnet’s common
themes in Romeo and Juliet’s plot are enough to make any reader recognize how much
embedded in the sonnet tradition the play actually is. Within the urge of those two lovers, “star
crossed” yet inherited “foes”, to be together, love and desire intertwine in such a manner that
reminds the reader of the sonneteer’s thoughts on those same topics.
The play goes on to its depiction of the Capulet-Montague family rivalry in between the
interactions amongst Romeo and Benvolio; Juliet and her Nurse. Act two starts with yet another
sonnet – apparently framing this which will be “the happiest act” throughout the whole play.
During the next scenes, a series of encounters between Romeo and Juliet construct the quick
progress of their relationship. In one act, they meet at the Capulet’s ball; they talk passionately
on the balcony; and they marry under the blessing of Friar Laurence.
 
Photo: Shutterstock.com
 The bronze artwork of Sergio Pasetto which describes Romeo and Juliet talking
passionately on the balcony
Interesting for our discussion, is the fact that when they first meet at the Capulet’s ball – in
which Romeo is a masked intruder – they are enveloped by a construct of their own design:
 
Image: Shutterstock.com
Romeo
If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
Juliet
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 palmer’s kiss.
Romeo
Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
Juliet
Ay, pilgrim, lips that theymust use in prayer.
Romeo
O then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do.
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
Juliet
Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake.
Romeo
Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I take.
—from Act 1, Scene 5, Lines 104-117
 
Image: Shutterstock.com
Their beautifully rhymed construction of the moment is famously known for the various solutions
proposed by directors all around the world. Being a central moment for the audience to connect
with those character’s love, it must be well attended to.
 
Image: Unknown author / 20th Century Fox / impawards.com ©
Baz Luhrman’s idea in his movie Romeo + Juliet was to place their conversation in between an
aquarium.

 
Image: Unknown author / Paramount Pictures / IMDb ©
The Italian filmmaker Franco Zefirelli puts the two lovebirds to meet behind the curtains of a hall
in which everyone in the party is dancing, except the two of them.
Thus, the aura usually established when the sonnet is built by the two of them is that of an
isolated space, beyond time and beyond the play itself. Therefore, like the chorus before acts
one and two, the sonnet is built to claim a spot beyond their families’ unending strife – a place in
which love was the moment and the moment, a forever present emotion.
 
photo: Unknown author / Wikimedia commons / CC BY-SA 4.0
 Melania Ballish Regueiro (Lopez) dancing the title role in Romeo and Juliet at Rostock
Volkstheater in 1998.
 
Photo: Shutterstock.com
After that, acts three, four, and five take a tragic direction towards Romeo and Juliet’s deaths.
Here, the sonnet had no part to play anymore. It was a love’s feature – to be able to expand,
exceed the enactment of a play and render itself eternal. However, after Mercutio and Thybalt’s
death midway through the play, there is no space for the sonnet’s effect in the play. Family
rivalry and the list of deaths resulted from it closed the gap in which Romeo and Juliet
established their kingdom of love and desire.
Interestingly enough, there seems to be an interplay between Shakespeare’s sonnets and his
plays. Even though, as mentioned before, playgoers and his readers belonged to different types
of audience, even to different social classes, his works seem to converse. By analyzing his
plays, we come across moments in which sonnets also emerge and help create the
atmosphere.
 
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A SONNET, FOR INSTANCE, MAY ARISE IN A MOMENT OF
INTIMACY OR EVEN DURING A SOLEMN RITE.
 
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PLAYS AND SONNETS: POSSIBLE CONVERSATIONS.
Are Shakespearean plays and sonnets really that different? Let's find out!
LEARNING CHECK
1. WE EXPLORED THE WAYS IN WHICH THE SONNETS AND PLAYS
CIRCULATED IN THE LATE SIXTEENTH AND EARLY SEVENTEENTH-
CENTURY ENGLAND. MARK THE OPTION WHICH EXPLAINS THE
DIFFERENCE, IN THE ELIZABETHAN TIMES, BETWEEN THE
SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET AS IT APPEARS ON THE PRINTED PAGE OF
THOMAS THORPE’S 1609 EDITION AND ITS DRAMATIC PROCLAMATION
ON A PLAY LIKE ROMEO AND JULIET.
A) The ephemera enactment of a play, in contrast with the permanence of a printed book of
poems, reveals a desire to be read by an elite audience of educated readers.
B) It was almost impossible to print a book of poems in Elizabethan England, therefore
Shakespeare needed to insert them into his plays.
C) Plays and poems were both highly popular and circulated a lot in printed versions.
D) Usually, only actors were interested in the sonnet sequences of the 1590s Elizabethan
England, therefore Shakespeare needed to insert some of his sonnets into his plays.
E) The printed book of poems, in contrast with the ephemera enactment of a play, reveals a
desire to be read by an elite audience of educated readers.
2. IF SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS ARE READ SOMETIMES AS
CORRESPONDING TO A SPECIFIC STORYLINE, MARK THE OPTION
WHICH CONTAINS THE CORRECT CLUES FOR US TO THINK THAT THE
SONNETEER MAY BE CONSIDERED ONE OF SHAKESPEARE’S
CHARACTERS.
A) The sonneteer is not involved with anyone for a long period of time and no sonnets can be
connected by a single storyline.
B) The sonneteer is emotionally involved in a relationship constructed in between the sonnets
and that ranges from love and sexual desire to humiliation and betrayal.
C) The sonneteer is constantly sad, but not because of any long-lasting reason which can be
traced throughout the different sonnets on the sequence.
D) The sonneteer is constantly changing his topics, proving only to be an equivalent to
Shakespeare himself.
E) The sonneteer is emotionally involved with a series of different subjects in a lot of different
ways, thus he seems always to be a different sonneteer from the one before.
GABARITO
1. We explored the ways in which the sonnets and plays circulated in the late sixteenth
and early seventeenth-century England. Mark the option which explains the difference, in
the Elizabethan times, between the Shakespearean sonnet as it appears on the printed
page of Thomas Thorpe’s 1609 edition and its dramatic proclamation on a play like
Romeo and Juliet.
Option "E " is correct.
 
The context in which Thomas Thorpe’s 1609 edition of Shakespeare’s Sonnets comes out is
crucial to establish how reading was an elite habit in Elizabethan England. That explains, for
instance, the elaborate cover of Venus and Adonis.
2. If Shakespeare’s sonnets are read sometimes as corresponding to a specific storyline,
mark the option which contains the correct clues for us to think that the sonneteer may
be considered one of Shakespeare’s characters.
Option "B " is correct.
 
Knowing that there is a background framework in which the sonnets build themselves up is
important for the student/ reader to understand how criticism acknowledged seriously the
possibility of the sonneteer as one of Shakespeare’s characters.
CONCLUSION
FINAL ISSUES
In conclusion, reading and studying Shakespeare’s sonnets involves both the actual reading of
the poems and the constructions built upon them by critics since their first appearance on the
printed page. In the previous sections, we investigated the general context in which the sonnets
emerged, especially in Thomas Thorpe’s 1609 edition. Also, we explored a specific set of
sonnets emphasizing the importance of both the common ground between them and their
characteristics regarding form and content. Lastly, we drew together the general storyline of
Shakespeare’s sonnet sequence, attentive to its construction in between the sonnets – which
renders the sonneteer yet another character in Shakespeare’s works. Thus, the range of
Shakespeare’s sonnets can only be totally accomplished by bearing in mind that he was as
much a man of his age as a poet for all time.
UNIT RATING:
REFERENCES
BEVINGTON, David. How to Read a Shakespeare Play. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006.
GUEIROS, Nehemias. Estudo: Mistério do Soneto Shakespeariano. In: SHAKESPEARE,
William. 50 Sonetos (trad. Ivo Barroso). Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, 2015.
POST, Jonathan F. Shakespeare’s Sonnets and Poems: a very short introduction. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2017.
ORGEL, Stephen. Introduction. In: SHAKESPEARE, William. The Sonnets. EVANS, G.
Blakemore (ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
SHAKESPEARE, William. The Sonnets. EVANS, G. Blakemore (ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2006.
SPENSER, E. Amoretti and Epithalamion, printed by William Ponsonby, 1595.
GO FURTHER
If you are interested in learning more about Shakespeare’s sonnets and his plays, three titles
may be really helpful, and all contain quite informative essays and chapters:
KASTAN, David Scott (org). A Companion to Shakespeare. Oxford: Blackwell
Publishing, 1999.
SMITH, Emma. The Cambridge Shakespeare Guide. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2012.
WELSS, Stanley & DE GRAZIA, Margreta. The New Cambridge Companion to
Shakespeare. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
CONTENT AUTHOR
Curadoria de Humanidades.NOTE
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