Nor that full star that ushers in the even Doth half that glory to the sober west As those two mourning eyes become thy face (Sonn. 132). The Sonnets were first published in 1609, with the following title-page (as given in the fac-simile of 1870): SHAKE-SPEARES | SONNETS. | Neuer before Imprinted. | AT LONDON | By G. Eld for T. T. and are to be solde by William Aspley. 1609. In some copies the latter part of the imprint reads: "to be solde by John Wright, dwelling | at Christ Church gate. | 1609." At the end of the volume A Lover's Complaint was printed. In 1640 the Sonnets (except Nos. 18, 19, 43, 56, 75, 76, 96, and 126), re-arranged under various titles, with the pieces in The Passionate Pilgrim, A Lover's Complaint, The Phoenix and the Turtle, the lines "Why should this a desert be,” etc. (A. Y. L. iii. 2. 133 fol.), "Take, O take those lips away," etc. (M. for M. iv. 1. 1 fol.), and sundry translations from Ovid, evidently not Shakespeare's (see our ed. of V. and A. p. 215), were published with the following title: POEMS: WRITTEN BY WIL. SHAKE-SPEARE. Gent. | Printed at London by Tho. Cotes, and are to be sold by John Benson, dwelling in | S Dunstans Church-yard. 1640. There is an introductory address "To the Reader" by Benson, in which he asserts that the poems are "of the same purity the Authour himselfe then living avouched," and that they will be found "seren, cleere and eligantly plaine." He adds that by bringing them "to the perfect view of all men" he is "glad to be serviceable for the continuance of glory to the deserved Author." The order of the poems in this volume is followed in the editions of Gildon (1710) and of Sewell (1725 and 1728); also in those published by Ewing (1771) and Evans (1775). In all these editions the sonnets mentioned above (18, 19, etc.) are omitted, and 138 and 144 are given in the form in which they appear in The Passionate Pilgrim. The first complete reprint of the Sonnets, after the edition of 1609, appears to have been in the collected edition of Shakespeare's Poems, published by Lintott in 1709 (see our ed. of Venus and Adonis, etc., p. 13). The earliest known reference to the Sonnets is in the Palladis Tamia of Meres (cf. M. N. D. p. 9, and C. of E. p. 101), who speaks of them as "his sugred Sonnets among his priuate friends." This was in 1598, and in the next year two of them (138 and 144) were printed in The Passionate Pilgrim. We do not know that any of the others were published before 1609. They were probably written at intervals during many years. "Some, if we were to judge by their style, belong to the time when Romeo and Juliet was written. Others-as, for example, 66-74-echo the sadder tone which is heard in Hamlet and Measure for Measure" (Dowden). It is evident that there is a gap of at least three years (see 104) between 99 and the following group (100-112). The theories concerning these interesting poems cannot even be enumerated in the space at our command. Some have looked on them as one poem; some as several poemsof groups of sonnets; some as containing a separate poem in each sonnet. They have been supposed to be written in Shakespeare's own person, or in the character of another, or of several others; to be autobiographical or heterobiographical, or allegorical; to have been addressed to Lord Southampton, to Sir William Herbert, to his own wife, to Lady Rich, to his child, to his nephew, to himself, to his muse. The 'W. H.' in the dedication has been interpreted as William Herbert, William Hughes, William Hathaway, William Hart (his nephew), William Himself, and Henry Wriothesly" (Fleay).* For our own part, we find it as difficult to believe that some of the Sonnets are autobiographical as that others are not; and all that has been written to prove that 1-126 are all addressed to the same person fails to convince us. It is clear enough that certain sets (like 1-17, for instance) Some of these theories are discussed in the extracts given below from Dowden's Introduction to his valuable edition of the Sonnets. For an admirable résumé of the entire literature of the subject, see the larger edition of Dowden (London, 1881), Part II. of the Introduction, pp. 36-110. |