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    Quarto: The V, Love's Labour's Lost, and in Edward III

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    সালমান রহমান মঈন
    Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets that were published in 1609, exploring unconventional themes like lust, homoeroticism, and misogyny. The sonnets tell a love triangle involving the Fair Youth, the Dark Lady, and the poet. The Fair Youth, to whom the first 126 sonnets are dedicated, is handsome but self-centered. The Dark Lady later seduces both the poet and the Fair Youth, complicating their relationships. The identities of the Fair Youth and Dark Lady remain unknown, as does the intended meaning of "Mr. W.H." to whom the collection is dedicated. The sonnets follow the typical English form but also challenge conventions through their candid exploration of desire.

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    Quarto: The V, Love's Labour's Lost, and in Edward III

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    37 views4 pages
    Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets that were published in 1609, exploring unconventional themes like lust, homoeroticism, and misogyny. The sonnets tell a love triangle involving the Fair Youth, the Dark Lady, and the poet. The Fair Youth, to whom the first 126 sonnets are dedicated, is handsome but self-centered. The Dark Lady later seduces both the poet and the Fair Youth, complicating their relationships. The identities of the Fair Youth and Dark Lady remain unknown, as does the intended meaning of "Mr. W.H." to whom the collection is dedicated. The sonnets follow the typical English form but also challenge conventions through their candid exploration of desire.

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    Class 3-lecture notes

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    Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets that were published in 1609, exploring unconventional themes like lust, homoeroticism, and misogyny. The sonnets tell a love triangle involving the Fair Youth, the Dark Lady, and the poet. The Fair Youth, to whom the first 126 sonnets are dedicated, is handsome but self-centered. The Dark Lady later seduces both the poet and the Fair Youth, complicating their relationships. The identities of the Fair Youth and Dark Lady remain unknown, as does the intended meaning of "Mr. W.H." to whom the collection is dedicated. The sonnets follow the typical English form but also challenge conventions through their candid exploration of desire.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    37 views4 pages

    Quarto: The V, Love's Labour's Lost, and in Edward III

    Uploaded by

    সালমান রহমান মঈন
    Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets that were published in 1609, exploring unconventional themes like lust, homoeroticism, and misogyny. The sonnets tell a love triangle involving the Fair Youth, the Dark Lady, and the poet. The Fair Youth, to whom the first 126 sonnets are dedicated, is handsome but self-centered. The Dark Lady later seduces both the poet and the Fair Youth, complicating their relationships. The identities of the Fair Youth and Dark Lady remain unknown, as does the intended meaning of "Mr. W.H." to whom the collection is dedicated. The sonnets follow the typical English form but also challenge conventions through their candid exploration of desire.

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    of 4

    Class 3 – 6th July 2020

    Shakespeare’s Sonnets

    ● Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets were first published all together in


    a quarto in 1609.
    ● He wrote six other sonnets for his plays – Romeo and Juliet, Henry
    the V, Love’s Labour’s Lost, and in Edward III
    ● Shakespeare’s Sonnets sprang from the Renaissance tradition
    - originated from the Italian Sonnets (14th century)
    - introduced in England by Thomas Wyatt in the 16th century
    - and Henry Howard gave rhyming meter and division into
    quatrain
    - Shakespeare broke the 200 years long tradition of sonnet
    convention of Petrarch, Dante, and Philip Sidney which
    challenged but also opened new terrain of the sonnet form
    - he broking away from the tradition content; worshipful love,
    almost unattainable goddess like yet unattainable female-object
    - by introducing a “fair youth”, a dark lady who is by no means a
    goddess
    - explores unconventional themes, e.g. lust, homoeroticism,
    misogyny, infidelity, and acrimony
    - but observes the English sonnet form, the rhyme scheme, 14
    lines and the meter with few exceptions
    ● The quarto of 1609 was published by Thomas Thorpe on 20 May
    1609
    - The first 126 addressed to a young man, last 28 to a woman
    - The first 17 poems, traditionally known as the “procreation
    sonnets”
    - addresses the young man—urges him to marry and immortalize
    his beauty to the next generation 
    - expresses the speaker's love for the young man
    - brood upon loneliness, death, and the transience of life
    - criticizes the young man for preferring a rival poet
    - express ambiguous feelings for the speaker's mistress
    - pun on the poet's name
    - final two sonnets are allegorical treatments of
    Greek epigrams ( satirical statement) referring to the "little love-
    god" Cupid
    ● Shakespeare’s Sonnets are dedicated to Mr. W.H
    - Published probably without the poet’s consent by T.T.
    - May 1609 was an extraordinary time
    - Pandemic, due to plague theatres were closed down
    - Shakespeare’s theatre company was on a tour to Oxford and he
    was not in Stratford
    ● Who was Mr. W.H?
    - The author’s patron, or the fair youth and both the patron?
    - William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke? / Henry Wriothesley, 3rd
    Earl of Southampton
    - William Hall – a printer
    - William Harvey (Southampton’s stepfather)
    - William Haughton – contemporary dramatist
    - William Hart – Shakespeare’s nephew and male heir
    - Willie Hughes
    - Oscar Wilde’s short story “The Portrait of Mr. WH”
    ● Structure and form of Shakespeare’s Sonnets
    - 3 quatrains (4-line stanzas) followed by a couplet
    - Iambic pentameter (five metrical feet, each consisting of one
    short/ unstressed syllable followed by one long/ stressed
    syllable, eg Two households, both alike in dignity) also used in
    his plays
    - Follows the rhyme scheme- ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
    - At the end of the 3rd quatrain, occurs the volta “turn”, the poet’s
    mood shifts, and the poet expresses a turn of thoughts
    - Few sonnets marked by “octave” and “sestet”/ 15 lines/ iambic
    tetra meter /rhyme
    - Characters- the poet, the Fair youth, the Dark Lady, the Rival
    Poet- not known if they are fiction/ autobiographical
    - Triangular love story – the poet loves the Fair Youth, later the
    poet has an affair with the Dark Lady, and so does the Fair
    Youth
    - It is not known which poems were written first
    ● The Love triangle
    - The Fair Youth is unidentified for whom 1-126 sonnets are
    devoted
    - He is handsome, self-centered, and much sought after
    - the poet urging the young man to marry and father children
    (sonnets 1–17)
    - continues with the friendship developing with the poet’s
    admiration, at times is homoerotic in nature
    - then comes a set of betrayals by the young man
    - as he is seduced by the Dark Lady, and they maintain a liaison
    (sonnets 133, 134 & 144), all of which the poet struggles to
    abide
    - concludes with the poet’s own act of betrayal, resulting in his
    independence from the fair youth (sonnet 152)
    - In the Dark Lady sequence (sonnets 127–152) Shakespeare is
    the most defiant of the sonnet tradition
    - The sequence distinguishes itself from the Fair Youth sequence
    with its overt sexuality (Sonnet 151)
    - The identity of Dark Lady is also unknown
    - The Dark Lady suddenly appears (Sonnet 127), and she and the
    speaker of the sonnets, the poet, are in a sexual relationship
    - She is not aristocratic, young, beautiful, intelligent or chaste.
    Her complexion is muddy, her breath “reeks”, and she is
    ungainly when she walks.
    - The Dark Lady presents an adequate receptor for male desire
    - She is celebrated in cocky terms that would be offensive to her
    - the speaker rebukes her for enslaving his fair friend (sonnet 130)
    - He can't abide the triangular relationship, and it ends with him
    both rejecting her and the Fair Youth
    - The Rival Poet’s identity is also concealed – a combination of
    all of them!
    - Because he was threatened by competing poets for fame and
    patronage
    ● “A Lover’s Complaint”
    - Part two of the quarto published in 1609
    - expresses the misery of a woman victimized by male desire
    - The young man of the sonnets and the young man of “A Lover’s
    Complaint” provide a thematic link between the two parts
    - In each part the young man is handsome, wealthy and
    promiscuous, unreliable and admired by all
    ● Shakespeare’s Sonnets and Conventional Elizabethan Poetry
    - scornful of allusions
    - inspired by biographical elements of his life (critiques to have
    over explored speculated without evidence)
    - so it turned us towards his rich text, highly complex structure of
    language and ideas
    - context of the culture and literature of the sonnets
    - non expert readers can also take pleasure from reading
    Shakespeare’s sonnets

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