Shakespeare: Sonnets + The tempest

William Shakespeare

We don't know much about William Shakespeare: there are not a lot of documents about him, his life is surrounded by many blanks and holes. Somebody says Shakespeare never existed and it was a nickname used as a mask by Giovanni Florio, but if we compare the two writings, they can’t be compared. Another older theory says Shakespeare was a nickname used by Francis Bacon, or maybe the Earl of Oxford. Somebody suggests Shakespeare was Italian.

Shakespeare as a playwright

He was a playwright. We are used to thinking theater was the most celebrated form of art. This idea is an equivocal one that remained to the Romantics (between the 1700s and 1800s). Before this, he was regarded as a rude and an ignorant. So he began to be considered a great author thanks to the Romantics. Wordsworth says Milton's sonnets are very good whereas Shakespeare’s ones are not that much good (“they are just quatrains with a distich at the end” – “Scorn not the sonnet, critic” “Non disprezzare il sonnetto, critico”). With the sonnets, Shakespeare unlocks his heart. Sonnets are the key to Shakespeare’s heart.

Dedication of the sonnets

The sonnets were first published in 1609. It’s not unusual that the initial dedication is made by the printer and not by the author. It’s our case: in the edition of 1609 there was no certification Shakespeare is the author of the sonnets. Did Shakespeare authorize the publication? In recent years, thanks to Katherine Duncan-Jones, the trend is to believe Shakespeare had authorized it.

MR: it has to be pronounced Master. (padrone, maestro, signore). In a corrupted way, Master became Mister. Mistress (padrona, amante, signora, madonna). The dedication is signed by Thomas Thorpe, the printer, and there are no references to the poet. He is dedicating this work to the poet.

Theories about W.H.

Begetter: how do we translate it? To beget means “cercare”. So it could probably mean “a colui che mi ha fatto materialmente arrivare i sonetti”. But to beget also means “far nascere”, so it could probably be dedicated to the one who made them.

We don’t know who W.H. is. There are many theories:

• Master W.H. is William Herbert, the third Earl of Pembroke. He is considered as Sidney’s sister Mary and William Shakespeare’s illegitimate son;
• Master W.H. is Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton;
• William Hall was a piratical printer;
• William Harvey, the step-father of Southampton;
• William Hathaway, Shakespeare’s brother-in-law;
• Wilde’s theory: in sonnet n. 20, he finds the term “hue” with the capital letter. Hue concentrates the lovely boy identity, who was William Hues.

Sonnets and their themes

The largest amount of sonnets are dedicated to the lovely boy.

Translation: All’unico ispiratore (according to Sidney, poets have to look into their own heart – where their beloved one’s face is – and write. The lovely boy is the Muse of Shakespeare, without whom Shakespeare would never write it) / Musa al signor W.H. tutta la felicità e tutta l’eternità promessa dal nostro poeta eterno (Why is the author defined immortal? Because he is immortal thanks to his works and so, thanks to his Muse). Signed by: l’avventuriere in questa avventura, so the one who decided to publish them.

Categories of sonnets

• Sonnets 1-17 or 1-19 are the so-called “marriage sonnets”. Within this section, we find the “sonnet of immortality”.
• Sonnets 76 to 86 are the sonnets that deal with the rival poet.
• Sonnets 89 to 109 deal with death.
• The last two are really conventional. They are basically organized in a Petrarchan organization/dichotomy.

The first one is not the best, but it is very important.

Sonnet 1 analysis

In the very first line, we notice the term “fairest”. Dalle creature più belle desideriamo procreazione, continuità crescita (exhort the lovely boy to marry in order to procreate and give birth to a dynasty). In modo che la rosa della bellezza non possa mai morire. Increase-decrease: dichotomy between aumentare and morire.

Rose: why is it important? It is clearly one of the elements of the vanitas. Who is the beauty’s rose? The lovely boy.

Ma quando il più vecchio morirà con il passare del tempo, il suo tenero erede/bambino manterrà la sua memoria.

Riper: più maturo, più vecchio. Ma tu sei concentrato su te stesso/sposato con te stesso; the lovely boy is Narcissus. Nutri la fiamma della tua luce con la tua stessa sostanza invece di amare qualcun’altro, alimenti te stesso con te stesso, provocando una carestia dove invece dovrebbe esserci abbondanza. Tu sei il tuo stesso nemico. Sei troppo crudele nei confronti di te stesso.

Tu che sei in questo momento l’ornamento più bello del mondo e unico annuncio/messaggero della primavera lussuosa, seppellisci nel tuo stesso bocciolo ciò che contieni e tenero avaro/tirchio non ti concedi. Abbi pietà del mondo, o sarai un tale ingordo che divora ciò che è dovuto al mondo nella tomba e in te stesso.

Why is the lovely boy associated with spring? Because he is young and spring brings rebirth.

Churl: avaro.

It already concentrates themes that Shakespeare will elaborate in his works. In the first line, we find the adjective “fairy” which is an adjective linked to the lovely boy. Fair is always linked to Fowl (brutto). Fowl, the opposite of fair, is connected with the Dark Lady.

Jan Cott is one of the greatest Shakespearian scholars “Shakespeare: our contemporary”. He is connected with Thomas Nash, the one who first published Astrophil and Stella, the very one who defined the collection a tragi-comedy. Close to Nash, he thought Shakespeare’s works can be defined as a tragedy. There are three characters: Speaker/lyrical voice; a youth; a woman. He adds a fourth character, which is not human, presented by Shakespeare as one of us humans: since the first line, the author is fighting against something which is inevitable, so he fights against Time (it’s anthropomorphic). Even if Cott doesn’t speak about it, there’s another character: the rival poet. Critics are still discussing the identity of the rival poet: probably is Marlow. Somebody says that the lovely boy has betrayed Shakespeare because he left his company to go working with Marlow’s company.

Shakespeare and his contemporary view

Nowadays we think Shakespeare is only a playwright, but this is not true (that’s because of the Romantics). That’s why we think in that time Theater was a high-level art, but this is not true because it was considered just a moment of joy, of relax, of fun, and music. The audience was very active and they were all standing. The audience was not composed of high-level people, in fact, a lot of theatrical plays finished with a fight (Marlow was killed during one of those fights). During those years a law decided they weren’t allowed the public theatre anymore, so they were to create private theatres (far away from the city).

Both Shakespeare and Marlow regarded themselves as poets. Jan Cott in an acute way says that the real theme of the sonnets is the impossibility of deciding, of choosing. The impossibility of choosing between the lovely boy and the dark lady.

The lovely boy and the dark lady

They can be defined as symbols of something. They stand for two different dimensions: the lovely boy is connected with the idea of golding (so some critics suggest the lovely boy stands for the Golden Age – the perfect time in which we live without death and suffering). In neoplatonic words, the lovely boy is the spiritual love (Plato defined the love between a man and a young boy the real spiritual love, because it is intellectual). Myth of Narcissus read by Wilde as Homosexuality.