<p> Shakespeare’s Sonnets Written mid 1590s, published without authority 1609. The strongest act of Parliamentthat coud be framed would fail to compel readers into [Shakespeare’s sonnets’] service. George Steevens, 1793. </p><p>“With this key [the sonnet] Shakespeare unlocked his heart” William Wordsworth “If so, the less Shakespeare he.” Robert Browning</p><p>Conventional literary exercise or personal inner life unfolded? 1. His lady black eyed 2. Writes to man not woman (homo-erotic?) 3. Real emotion?</p><p>Order of 154 sonnets is not authoritative, though themes evident: Love, need to procreate, jealously, mutability, lady’s coldness, passing of seasons, catalogue of lady’s beauty, poet’s despair, immortality through verse, philosophical speculation—whole range in sonnet cycles.</p><p>Shakespeare writing during the 1590s sonnet craze. But his depths of moral and aesthetic contemplation deeper than that of Spenser (Amoretti), Sidney (Astrophel and Stella), et cetera.</p><p>Shakespeare’s sonnets generally ignored, rearranged, given titles, combined into longer poems, and altered so that most of those addressed to young man were made to seem addressed to a woman (Benson’s text does this). First reliable text published 1780 by Edmond Malone. </p><p>Except for 99, 126, and 145, written in the English Sonnet form of three quatrains and a couplet (Surrey started this). Rhetorical organization follows structural form, and couplet usually ties sonnet to general theme of series. </p><p>Immortal Verse 15 18 18</p><p>Genius 55 60</p><p>Seasons and Lovers 97 98 99</p><p>Personal 110 111 112</p><p>Acting Imagery 23</p><p>Anatomy of Lust 129</p><p>Sexual Despair 144 </p>