The literary works of William Shakespeare (l. c. 1564-1616) are often regarded as some of the most important in the English language. Alongside his famous plays, he also wrote poems, including 154 sonnets. Included here are six of the best-known Shakespearean sonnets as well as two longer 'songs' from his plays.
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Background: Shakespeare the Poet
In the summer of 1592, when William Shakespeare was still new to London and yet to establish himself as a playwright, an outbreak of plague swept through the city, forcing the theatres to close until the contagion had abated. Left in need of a new source of income, Shakespeare turned to writing poetry; as scholar Catherine Bates explains, "a choice and well-turned poem – if it caught the eye of a wealthy patron – might with luck and skill bring its author to the attention of someone in a material position to reward him" (Kinney, 413). And, indeed, Shakespeare won the patronage of the Earl of Southampton with his poem Venus and Adonis (1593), launching his career as a poet. While Venus and Adonis was incredibly successful in its day, the poetry Shakespeare is best known for today are undoubtedly his sonnets.
Sonnet Structure & Subjects
The sonnet is amongst the oldest and strictest of poetic styles, dating back to Italy in the 13th century – indeed, the word sonnet is derived from the Italian sonetto, or 'little song'. It was first used by Giacomo da Lentini at court in the city of Palermo, although the most famous of the pre-Shakespearean sonnet writers was undoubtedly Petrarch. His version of the sonnet – called the Petrarchan sonnet – requires 14 lines of iambic pentameter and a rhyme scheme that follows this pattern: ABBA ABBA CDECDE (Shakespeare would modify this rhyme scheme to ABAB CDCD EFEF GG). Sonnets also include a volta, or turn, which divides the poem into two parts, often called the 'proposition' and the 'resolution'. In the 'proposition', comprising the first part of the sonnet, a problem or question is presented. The volta provides a turning point in the narrator's thought, leading into the second part of the sonnet, the 'resolution', which gives a solution or a new perspective to the matter at hand. In medieval literature, classic Petrarchan sonnets are divided into an octave (first eight lines) and a sestet (last six lines). Shakespeare, however, organizes his sonnets differently, utilizing three quatrains (four-line stanzas) followed by a couplet.
Shakespeare's 154 sonnets can, roughly, be divided into three groups, based on the differing subjects to which they are addressed. The vast majority – sonnets 1-126 – are addressed to a 'Fair Youth', a beauteous and self-centered young man who is viewed by the narrator in a friendly, admiring, and, at times, homoerotic way. The identity of the 'Fair Youth' has also been debated by scholars, with the Earl of Southampton once again a leading contender; authors such as Oscar Wilde have speculated whether the 'Fair Youth' could have been William Hughes, a comely young man who often played the female parts in Shakespeare's plays. Sonnets 127-152 are addressed to the 'Dark Lady' and are more overtly erotic than the preceding group. As with the 'Fair Youth', the identity of a real 'Dark Lady' is debated, with several candidates having been put forth. Emilia Lanier, considered England's first professional female poet, is one of the most popular candidates for the inspiration behind the 'Dark Lady'. The final two sonnets, as Bates puts it, involve "racy mythological fables about Cupid" and "are based on the style of the Greek poet Anacreon" (Kinney, 426).
Sonnet 18
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Sonnet 19
Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet'st,
And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
To the wide world and all her fading sweets:
But I forbid thee one most heinous crime –
Oh carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;
Him in thy course untainted do allow
For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.
Yet do thy worst, old Time: despite thy wrong
My love shall in my verse ever live young.
Sonnet 29
When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
Sonnet 53
What is your substance, whereof are you made,
That millions of strange shadows on you tend?
Since every one hath, every one, one shade,
And you, but one, can every shadow lend.
Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit
Is poorly imitated after you;
On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set,
And you in Grecian tires are painted new.
Speak of the spring and foison of the year:
The one doth shadow of your beauty show,
The other as your bounty doth appear,
And you in every blessรจd shape we know.
In all external grace you have some part,
But you like none, none you for constant heart.
Sonnet 130
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head;
I have seen roses demasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks;
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go
(My mistress when she walks treads on the ground).
And yet by heaven I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
Sonnet 144
Two loves I have, of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still:
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman coloured ill.
To win me soon to hell, my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
And whether that my angel be turned fiend
Suspect I may, yet not directly tell;
But being both from me, both to each friend,
I guess one angel in another's hell:
Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt
Till my bad angel fire my good one out.
Song: The Wind and the Rain (from Twelfth Night)
When that I was and a little tiny boy,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
A foolish thing was but a toy,
For the rain it raineth every day.
But when I came to man's estate,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
'Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gate,
For the rain it raineth every day.
But when I came, alas! to wive,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
By swaggering could I never thrive,
For the rain it raineth every day.
But when I came unto my beds,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
With tosspots still had drunken heads,
For the rain it raineth every day.
A great while ago the world begun,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain;
But that's all one, our play is done,
And we'll strive to please you every day.
Song: Fear No More (from Cymbeline)
Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages;
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
Fear no more the frown o' the great,
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke;
Care no more to clothe and eat,
To thee the reed is as the oak:
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.
Fear no more the lightning flash,
Nor the all-dreaded thunder stone;
Fear not slan
der, censure rash;
Thou hast finished joy and moan:
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee and come to dust.
No exorciser harm thee!
Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Nothing ill come near thee!
Quiet consummation have,
And renownรจd be thy grave.
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