Part 7 (1/2)

His choice of patron for this, like all his volumes, was dictated solely by his mercantile interests He was under no inducement and in no position to take into consideration the affairs of Shakespeare's private life Shakespeare, through all but the earliest stages of his career, belonged socially to a world that was cut off by impassable barriers fro It holly outside Thorpe's ai a dedication with any cryptic significance

No peer of the day, moreover, bore a name which could be represented by the initials 'Mr W H' Shakespeare was never on terh the contrary has often been recklessly assumed) with William, third Earl of Pembroke, when a youth {94} But were co, they would throw no light on Thorpe's 'Mr W H' The Earl of Pembroke was, from his birth to the date of his succession to the earldom in 1601, known by the courtesy title of Lord Herbert and by no other nanated at any period of his life by the syh officer of state, and numerous books were dedicated to him in all the splendour of his many titles Star-Chamber penalties would have been exacted of any publisher or author who denied him in print his titular distinctions Thorpe had occasion to dedicate two books to the earl in later years, and he there showed not merely that he was fully acquainted with the compulsory etiquette, but that his sycophantic teer to improve on the conventional formulas of servility Any further consideration of Thorpe's address to 'Mr W H'

belongs to the biographies of Thorpe and his friend; it lies outside the scope of Shakespeare's biography {95a}

The fornore the somewhat complex scheme of rhyme adopted by Petrarch, whom the Elizabethan sonnetteers, like the French sonnetteers of the sixteenth century, recognised to be in inally set by Surrey and Wyatt, and generally pursued by Shakespeare's contereater metrical simplicity than the Italian or the French They consist of three decasyllabic quatrains with a concluding couplet, and the quatrains rhyle sonnet does not always form an independent poem As in the French and Italian sonnets of the period, and in those of Spenser, Sidney, Daniel, and Drayton, the sah two or more

The collection of Shakespeare's 154 sonnets thus presents the appearance of an extended series of independent poe nuest sequence (i-xvii) numbers seventeen sonnets, and in Thorpe's edition opens the voluroups'

It is unlikely that the order in which the poems were printed follows the order in which they ritten Fantastic endeavours have been ement of the poems a closely connected narrative, but the thread is on any showing constantly interrupted {96} It is usual to divide the sonnets into two groups, and to represent that all those nu man, and all those numbered cxxvii-cliv were addressed to a woman This division cannot be literally justified In the first group sohty of the sonnets can be proved to be addressed to a man by the use of thethe re forty there is no clear indication of the kind Many of these forty are meditative soliloquies which address no person at all (cf cv cxvi

cxix cxxi) A few invoke abstractions like Death (lxvi) or Time (cxxiii), or 'benefit of ill' (cxix) The twelve-lined poeroup,' does little more than sound a variation on the conventional poetic invocations of Cupid or Love personified as a boy {97} And there is no valid objection to the assumption that the poet inscribed the rest of these forty sonnets to a woman (cf xxi xlvi

xlvii) Siroup' (cxxvii-cliv) have no uniform superscription Six invoke no person at all No

cxxviii is an overstrained coinals No cxxix is a metaphysical disquisition on lust No cxlv

is a playful lyric in octosyllabics, like Lyly's song of 'Cupid and Campaspe,' and its tone has close affinity to that and other of Lyly's songs No cxlvi invokes the soul of man Nos cliii and cliv

soliloquise on an ancient Greek apologue on the force of Cupid's fire

{98}

Main topics of the first 'group'

The choice and succession of topics in each 'group' give to neither genuine cohesion In the first 'group' the long opening sequence (i-xvii) for man to marry so that his youth and beauty may survive in children There is al of that topic and his e sonnets (xviii-xix) that his verse alone is fully equal to the task of i his friend's youth and accomplishments The same asseveration is repeated in many later sonnets (cf lv lx lxiii lxxiv lxxxi ci cvii) These alternate with conventional adulation of the beauty of the object of the poet's affections (cf xxi liii lxviii) and descriptions of the effects of absence in intensifying devotion (cf xlviii l cxiii) There are many reflections on the nocturnal torments of a lover (cf xxvii xxviii

xliii lxi) and on his blindness to the beauty of spring or summer when he is separated from his love (cf xcvii xcviii) At tiht and won the favour of the poet's(xxxii-xxxv xl-xlii lxix xcv-xcvi) In Sonnet lxx the young man whom the poet addresses is credited with a different disposition and experience:

And thou present'st a pure unstained pri days, Either not assail'd, or victor being charg'd!

At times melancholy overwhele (lxvi), reproaches himself with carnal sin (cxix), declares hi (cxi cxii), and foretells his approaching death (lxxi-lxxiv) Throughout are dispersed obsequious addresses to the youth in his capacity of sole patron of the poet's verse (cf xxiii xxxvii c ci ciii civ) But in one sequence the friend is sorrowfully reproved for bestowing his patronage on rival poets (lxxviii-lxxxvi) In three sonnets near the close of the first group in the original edition, the writer gives varied assurances of his constancy in love or friendshi+p which apply indifferently to man or woman (cf

cxxii cxxiv cxxv)

Main topics of the second 'group'

In two sonnets of the second 'group' (cxxvi-clii) the poet compliments his mistress on her black complexion and raven-black hair and eyes In twelve sonnets he hotly denounces his 'dark' mistress for her proud disdain of his affection, and for hera theroup,' the poet rebukes the wouiled his friend to yield himself to her seductions (cxxxiii-cxxxvi) Elsewhere he ant compliments paid to the fair sex by other sonnetteers (No cxxx) or lightly quibbles on his name of 'Will' (cxxx-vi) In tone and subject-roup' lack visible sign of coherence with those they immediately precede or follow