Shakespeare’s Sonnet Sequence: Time, Love, and the Poetic Persona
Date Issued
2020
Author(s)
Abstract
Some of the best love poems of Shakespeare are addressed to the “fair youth,” but who is this man “more temperate than a summer’s day” that inspired over two-thirds of Shakespeare’s sonnets? The most popular theory concerning the identity of the poet’s muse points to Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton. As one of Shakespeare’s patrons, Wriothesley helped Shakespeare, financially, to produce some of his works in the 1590s. Though not rejecting such a literal connection, I lean more towards the viewpoint that poets happily create a poetic persona, artificial and distinct from themselves. Instead of inquiring into the identity of the mysterious figure, this paper aims to explore the relationship between the poetic persona (rather than Shakespeare the poet) and the young man through the metaphors of time, love and beauty. I want to suggest that there is drama in the sonnet sequence: four figures emerged from the poetic scenario—the poet, the fair youth (the Friend), the Dark Lady, and the rival poet. The failure of the project, as seen in the first seventeen poems, to persuade the young man to marry has crucial consequences for the relationship between him and the poetic persona. The relationship between the older poet and the young Friend was one of profound and at times agitated friendship, which involved a certain physical and quasi-sexual fascination emanating from the Friend and enveloping the older poet, but did not necessarily include sexual activity in any shocking or sensational sense. I shall argue that the project of the “young man sonnets” becomes an attempt to define him anew, and in keeping with the impetus of the first 17, this will be done in a personal manner. From sonnets 18-126, the poet’s attitude toward the friend is one of love mingled with bitterness. The nature of the platonic love of a man for another man revealed in this group of sonnets has become an intriguing subject for investigation. Several sonnets addressed to the friend refer to another poet who is a rival for the friend’s esteem. The issue is further complicated by the sonnets numbered 127-152 which involves a mysterious “Dark Lady.” Through the lens of the poetic persona, however, we may attempt to describe Shakespeare’s feeling for love, different kinds of self-love, different kinds of love for another person, and finally, his claim that art as a form of love, or more specifically sonneteering as an act of love, transcends change and temporality.
Subjects
sonnet sequence
poetic persona
experience of love
temporality
Type
report
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邱錦榮休假研究報告 2020─Shakespeare's Sonnets.docx
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