Shakespeare's Sonnets

• 154 sonnets published in 1609 — the most celebrated sequence of lyric poems in English • Sonnets 1-17 ("Procreation sonnets"): urging a beautiful young man to marry and have children — beauty must be preserved through reproduction • Sonnets 18-126: addressed to the "Fair Youth" — passionate declarations of love, jealousy, rivalry, and devotion to a young man • "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" (Sonnet 18) — perhaps the most famous love poem ever written • The rival poet (Sonnets 78-86): someone else is also writing for the youth's patronage. Shakespeare is jealous • Sonnets 127-152: the "Dark Lady" — a black-haired, sexually available, morally complex woman. The speaker is addicted to her despite knowing she's unfaithful • "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun" (Sonnet 130) — anti-Petrarchan: she's not idealized, she's real, and he loves her anyway • Sonnet 116: "Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments" — the definitive statement of love as constancy • Sonnet 129: "Th'expense of spirit in a waste of shame / Is lust in action" — the most savage analysis of sexual desire in English poetry • Sonnets 153-154: playful classical exercises about Cupid. Seem disconnected from the rest • The identities of the Fair Youth, Dark Lady, and rival poet have generated centuries of speculation — no definitive answers • The sequence traces love in all its forms: idealized, erotic, jealous, despairing, transcendent, and bitterly honest