Part 6 (2/2)

Majority of Shakespeare's sonnets composed in 1594

But these were sporadic efforts It was not till the spring of 1593, after Shakespeare had secured a noblee for his earliest publication, 'Venus and Adonis,' that he became a sonnetteer on an extended scale Of the hundred and fifty-four sonnets that survive outside his plays, the greater number were in all likelihood co his thirtieth and thirty-first years His occasional reference in the sonnets to his growing age was a conventional device--traceable to Petrarch--of all sonnetteers of the day, and admits of no literal interpretation {86} In est that they came from the pen of a man notefforts occasionally and at irregular intervals during the nine years which elapsed between 1594 and the accession of James I in 1603 But to very few of the extant examples can a date later than 1594 be allotted with confidence Sonnet cvii, in which plain reference is arded as a belated and a final act of houe of the Elizabethan sonnet All the evidence, whether internal or external, points to the conclusion that the sonnet exhausted such fascination as it exerted on Shakespeare before his draht

Their literary value

In literary value Shakespeare's sonnets are notably unequal Many reach levels of lyric y that are hardly to be ed with the ht and feeling, the vividness of i fervour of expression which are the finest fruits of poetic power On the other hand, many sink almost into inanity beneath the burden of quibbles and conceits In both their excellences and their defects Shakespeare's sonnets betray near kinshi+p to his early drahest poetic temper at tilery In phraseology the sonnets often closely resemble such early dramatic efforts as 'Love's Labour's Lost' and 'Romeo and Juliet' There is far more concentration in the sonnets than in 'Venus and Adonis' or in 'Lucrece,' although occasional utterances of Shakespeare's Roman heroine show traces of the intensity that characterises the best of they of the sonnets is to be attributed, not to the accession of power that comes with increase of years, but to the innate principles of the poetic forencies, which impelled the sonnetteer to aie

Circulation in manuscript

In accordance with a custom that was not uncommon, Shakespeare did not publish his sonnets; he circulated therew, and public interest was aroused in theive them publicity A line from one of them:

Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds (xciv 14), {89a}

was quoted in the play of 'Edward III,' which was probably written before 1595 Meres, writing in 1598, enthusiastically co his private friends,' and mentions them in close conjunction with his two narrative poeard piratically inserted in 1599 two of the most mature of the series (Nos

cxxxviii and cxliv) in his 'Passionate Pilgrim'

Their piratical publication in 1609 'A Lover's Coth, in 1609, the sonnets were surreptitiously sent to press

Thon of their publication, was a ca ar for publication literary works which had been widely disseminated in written copies, and had thus passed beyond their authors'

control; for the law then recognised no natural right in an author to the creations of his brain, and the full owner of a manuscript copy of any literary composition was entitled to reproduce it, or to treat it as he pleased, without reference to the author's wishes Thorpe's career as a procurer of neglected 'copy' had begun well He ht Marlowe's translation of the 'First Book of Lucan' On May 20, 1609, he obtained a license for the publication of 'Shakespeares Sonnets,' and this tradesured not only on the 'Stationers' Coe Thorpe ee Eld to print the manuscript, and two booksellers, Williaht, to distribute it to the public On half the edition Aspley's naured as that of the seller, and on the other half that of Wright The book was issued in June, {90} and the owner of the 'copy' left the public under noabove his initials a dedicatory preface from his own pen The appearance in a book of a dedication from the publisher's (instead of from the author's) pen was, unless the substitution was specifically accounted for on other grounds, an accepted sign that the author had no hand in the publication Except in the case of his two narrative poems, which were published in 1593 and 1594 respectively, Shakespeare ly submitted to the wholesale piracies of his plays and the ascription to hied by his passive indifference and the conteht He cannot be credited with any responsibility for the publication of Thorpe's collection of his sonnets in 1609 With characteristic insolence Thorpe took the added liberty of appending a previously unprinted poem of forty-nine seven-line stanzas (the metre of 'Lucrece') entitled 'A Lover's Coirl laentle Spenserian vein, has no connection with the 'Sonnets' If, as is possible, it be by Shakespeare, it must have been written in very early days

Tho Thorpe's preface and his part in the publication has led many critics into a serious misinterpretation of Shakespeare's poeuage which was habitual to hi poet' As the chief pro, he called hi forth,' and in resonant phrase designated as the patron of the venture a partner in the speculation, 'Mr W H' In the conventional dedicatory formula of the day he wished 'Mr W H' 'all happiness' and 'eternity,' such eternity as Shakespeare in the text of the sonnets conventionally foretold for his own verse When Thorpe was organising the issue of Marlowe's 'First Book of Lucan' in 1600, he sought the patronage of Edward Blount, a friend in the trade 'W H' was doubtless in a like position He is best identified with a stationer's assistant, Williaed, like Thorpe, in procuring 'copy' In 1606 'W

H' won a conspicuous success in that direction, and conducted his operations under cover of the familiar initials In that year 'W H'

announced that he had procured a neglected manuscript poem--'A Foure-fould Meditation'--by the Jesuit Robert Southho had been executed in 1595, and he published it with a dedication (signed 'W H') vaunting his good fortune inwith such treasure-trove When Thorpe dubbed 'Mr W H,' with characteristic etter [_ie_ obtainer or procurer] of these ensuing sonnets,' he e was the first of the pirate-publisher fraternity to procure a manuscript of Shakespeare's sonnets and recommend its surreptitious issue In accordance with custoave Hall's initials only, because he was an intimate associate as known by those initials to their common circle of friends Hall was not a man of sufficiently wide public reputation to render it probable that the printing of his full name would excite additional interest in the book or attract buyers

The common assumption that Thorpe in this boastful preface was covertly addressing, under the initials 'Mr W H,' a young nobleinally addressed by Shakespeare, ignores the ele transactions of the day, and especially of those of the type to which Thorpe's efforts were confined {93} There was nothing h from a modern point of view there was much that lacked principle, in Thorpe's methods of business