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William ShakespeareSonnet 1
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1609A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Literary Context: The History of the Sonnet Form
Shakespeare’s sonnets were published at a time when the genre was becoming somewhat unfashionable, in the late English Renaissance. Erin A. McCarthy, writing for the Folger Library’s Shakespeare Documented, elaborates on this: “The 1590s were the peak of the sonnet vogue in England: 20 first edition sonnet books appeared between 1590 and 1599. While some sonnet sequences were printed or reprinted during the seventeenth century, by 1609, the form was a bit dated.” Poets who took part in the English sonnet craze were Philip Sidney, whose sequence titled Astrophil and Stella was published in 1591, and Edmund Spenser, whose Amoretti was published in 1595. Some of Shakespeare’s sonnets appear in his play Romeo and Juliet, which was published in 1597, at the beginning of the end of the sonnet’s popularity in England.
Sonnets originally became popular in Italy in the 14th century. The English word “sonnet” comes from the Italian word sonetto, which means “little song.” Most scholars credit Francesco Petrarca, known in English as Petrarch, with popularizing the sonnet form in the 1300s. Both the Italian and English forms contain 14 lines, but the rhyme schemes and structures in those lines are different. Petrarch’s version of the sonnet, which is called the Petrarchan or Italian sonnet form, contains an octave and a sestet—a section of eight lines followed by a section of six lines after a volta, or a turn in the direction of thought. Petrarch’s sonnets became fashionable again after Thomas Wyatt translated them into English as part of Tottel’s Miscellany (1557). During the English Renaissance, the sonnet form changed: Typically, the volta comes before the poem’s final couplet.
Biographical Context: Sonnet Sequence Dedication
The original 1609 edition of the sonnet sequence, and in many editions published since, includes a somewhat mysterious dedication. The sequence is dedicated “To the only begetter of these ensuing sonnets M.W.H. All happiness and that eternity promised by our ever-living poet.”
The initials MWH are usually disambiguated to mean “Mr. W. H.”—an unidentified figure who is considered to be the young man that is the addressee of many of Shakespeare’s sonnets. His identity has been debated by scholars for centuries. Some suggest that W. H. stands for Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, or William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, because Shakespeare and his posthumous editor dedicated other poems to them. In this reading, the word “begetter” would mean the person who inspired the poems rather than actually had a hand in creating them as a father does a child. Another theory is that the dedication stands for William Himself, that is, William Shakespeare. This reading comes from a more literal interpretation of the word “begetter” as referring to the poem’s creator. A few scholars have argued that “begetter” could also refer to a procurer, but this is not a popular theory.
Today, the identity of W. H. remains a mystery, but the fact that this mysterious person seems to align with the male addressee of some of the sonnets points to Shakespeare’s willingness to break with poetic convention. Sonnets that preceded Shakespeare’s sequence were all written by men about beautiful women: For example, Petrarch wrote about his beloved Laura, while Spenser addressed his wife Elizabeth Boyle. Shakespeare, in contrast, explores love between a male poet and a young man.
Related Titles
By William Shakespeare
