"No whit the less like Shakespeare, but undoubtedly the less like Browning." "If any should be curious to discover SWINBURNE. Whether to you I am a friend or lover, Let him read Shakespeare's sonnets, taking thence SHELLEY "I loved thee, Spirit, and love, nor can The soul of Shakespeare love thee more." TENNYSON. The First Edition. On May 20th, 1609, "a book callea Shakespeares Sonnettes" was entered on the Stationers' Register, and soon after was published, in quarto, with the following title-page : "SHAKE-SPEARES | SONNETS. | Neuer before Imprinted. | AT LONDON | By G. ELD for T. T. and are | to be solde by William Aspley. | 1609. | "* At the end of the Sonnets was printed, for the first time, the poem entitled "A LOVERS COMPLAINT." The text of the Sonnets was, on the whole, carefully printed, but evidently without the author's supervision; thus, e.g. Sonnet CXXVI., a twelve-line Envoi, was marked by parentheses at the end, as though two lines were missing; similarly, the final couplet of Sonnet XCVI. may have been borrowed from Sonnet XXXVI. In 1640 Shakespeare's Sonnets, re-arranged under various titles, (with the omission of XVIII., XIX., XLIII., LVI., LXXV., LXXVI., XCVI., CXXVI.), were included in "POEMS: WRITTEN BY WIL. SHAKESPEARE, Gent. Printed at London by Tho. Cotes, and are to be sold by John Benson, dwelling in St Dunstanes Churchyard 1640." is strange that there should have been no edition between * Some copies have the name of "John Wright, dwelling at Christ Church gate," as the bookseller, instead of "William Aspley." A facsimile of the "Sonnets" was issued among the "Shakspere Quarto Facsimiles" (No. 30). The original selling price of the " Sonnets" was 5d. A perfect copy would, probably, now fetch £500. 1609 and 1640; perhaps Benson's protestation that "the Reader" will find them "Seren, cleere, and eligantly plain, such gentle straines as shall recreate and not perplexe the brain, no intricate or cloudy stuffe to puzzell intellect, but perfect eloquence," best explains the prevailing opinion on the subject of the poems. Mr Publisher "protests too much" against the alleged obscurity of the Sonnets.* One hundred years after the appearance of the First Edition, the Sonnets were first republished, by Lintott, as originally printed; about the same time Gildon issued a new edition of the 1640 version, under the heading of "Poems on several occasions." The Sequence of the Sonnets. The Sonnets, as printed in 1609, present on the whole an orderly arrangement, though here and there it is somewhat difficult to find the connecting links. If it could be proved that any one Sonnet is out of place, the whole chain would perhaps be spoilt, but no such "broken link" can be adduced.† The Sonnet-Sequence consists of three main sections:-A. Sonnets I.-CXXVI.; B. Sonnets CXXVII.-CLII.; C. Sonnets CLIII.-CLIV. Sections A and B are closely connected; Section * Probably no weight is to be attached to Benson's statement that the poems are "of the same purity the Author himself then living avouched." † Mr Rolfe, in his Addenda to the " Sonnets" contrasts Sonnet LXX. with Sonnets XXXIII.-XXXV. (to say nothing of XL.-XLII.); if these Sonnets, he observes, are addressed to the same person, Sonnet LXX. is unquestionably out of place. This seems so at first sight; but surely the faults referred to in the earlier Sonnets are not only forgiven, but here (in LXX.) imputed to slander; or, as Mr Tyler puts it, "such an affair as that with the poet's mistress was not regarded, apparently, as involving serious moral blemish." Anyhow the statement in the Sonnet is somewhat too flattering, but its position dare not be disturbed. C may be a sort of Epilogue to B, but is more probably an in- «Τᾷδ ̓ ὑπὸ τὰς πλατάνους ἁπαλῷ τετρυμένος ὕπνῳ The general theme The Drama of the Sonnet. of the Sonnets is the poet's almost idolatrous love for a younger friend, a noble and beauteous youth, beloved for his own sweet sake, not for his exalted rank; this unselfish, whole-hearted, and soul-absorbing devotion passes through various stages of doubt, distrust, infidelity, jealousy, and estrangement; after the period of trial, love is again restored, stronger and greater than before : "O benefit of ill! now I find true That better is by evil still made better; Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater." * "Here beneath the plane trees, overborne by soft sleep, Love slumbered, giving his torch to the Nymphs' keeping; and the Nymphs said to one another, "Why do we delay? and would that with this we might have quenched the fire in the heart of mortals." But now, the torch having kindled even the waters, the amorous Nymphs pour hot water thence into the bathing pool." Mackail, Select Epigrams. (On the source of the two Sonnets, cp. Hertzberg, Jahrbuch der Deutschen Shakespeare-Gesellschaft 1878). A Latin rendering is found in Selecta Epigrammata; Basel, 1529. . |