Study material for second semester students CC- IV (section- A)
Shakespeare’s sonnet sequence Writer – William Shakespeare. Total number of sonnets – one hundred and fifty four. Publication history- two of Shakespeare’s sonnets (sonnet 138 and 144) were first published in a collection titled The Passionate Pilgrim in the year 1599.
Thomas Thorpe in the year 1609 published a quarto edition containing one hundred fifty four sonnets by Shakespeare.
Dedication – The sonnet sequence is dedicated to a mysterious Mr. W.H.
Division: the first one hundred twenty six sonnets (1-126) are dedicated to an unnamed young man often mentioned as the ‘Fair Youth’. The last two sonnets
(153 & 154) are addressed to Cupid and the rest of the sonnets (127-52) are dedicated to a mysterious woman or the Dark Lady.
There is a fierce debate regarding the true identity of the ‘Fair Youth’ and the
Dark Lady among Shakespeare scholars. Though some scholars propose that either William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke or Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of
Southampton is most likely the mysterious young man and Mary Fitton is probably the Dark Lady of Shakespeare’s sonnet sequence, there is no irrefutable proof and therefore the debate is never resolved.
Form – Barring a few exceptions, the sonnets of the sequence are written in
Shakespearean sonnet style containing three quatrains and a final couplet. The sonnets generally are written in iambic pentameter. The sonnets follow the rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg.
Exceptions- sonnet 99 has fifteen lines in stead of fourteen. Sonnet 126 has twelve lines written in the form of six couplets. Sonnet 145 is written in iambic tetrameter in stead of iambic pentameter.
Important themes - The pains and pleasures of love, betrayal in love, standards of true beauty, procreation, the destructive nature of time, mortality, old age, rivalry with another poet, the immortality and power of art or verse etc.
Other poems of Shakespeare : Apart from the sonnet sequence, Shakespeare also wrote two long narrative poems. They are – Venus and Adonis and The Rape of
Lucrece.