Introduction to Shakespeare’s sonnets

Perhaps the greatest writer to ever put words from pen to paper, William Shakespeare has been scrutinized, dissected, and studied in ways that could take the joy out of anyone. But Shakespeare wrote to entertain the common people of Elizabethan England, as well as the educated elite. And he had an unparalleled ability to touch the hearts of his audience, often making them laugh and cry at the same time.

Yet Shakespeare wrote not to hide his meaning under lofty phrases, but to share his wisdom with those around him, in ways that were both playful and insightful. We see in his plays, as well as in his poetry, that he can rearrange words and their conventional arrangements almost at will, achieving unparalleled expression of ideas. In his sonnets, although some arrangements arise from the need for a rhyme to fit the pattern, the result is some of the loveliest verse known to English literature.

The sonnet was a popular form of poetry in Elizabethan times throughout Europe. Shakespeare’s choice of the English form of the sonnet allowed him almost unlimited flexibility of expression. This chosen form allowed him to resolve or continue his themes as the mood (or the dictates of iambic pentameter) struck him, and often he continued his thoughts through the quatrain division. Still, most modern editors use the sonnet form to guide their choice of modernized punctuation, reasoning that each quatrain usually marks the end of a complete thought.

More commonly, the sonnets portrayed a miserable lover, agonizing over the conflicting emotions of lust and idealized love. Shakespeare’s sonnets often convey major contradictions as well, showing a contrast between beauty and cold reality, hope and despair. The structured form required discipline and creativity, but from these conflicts Shakespeare, the sonnetero, was able to explore his innermost being, in the same way that an actor’s soliloquy would reveal the soul of a character on stage. Yet Shakespeare the artist often hid between the lines of his verse, and despite the temptation of modern scholars, we know too little about the man himself to draw any firm conclusions from the lines of his poetry.

Despite the speculation of modern scholars, it is doubtful that the author intended them to form a unified narrative. Narrative was more suited to his plays and narrative poems, and he probably regarded his sonnets simply as short poems. It is likely that he composed them simply when inspiration struck him, or to pass the time between other projects and activities. If so, imposing a theme or narrative thread on the entire collection is simply the figment of our own imagination and an attempt to find order in the chaos of existence. Since the author was also a successful businessman, playwright, and businessman, it is unlikely that he would have conceived the collection with an overarching theme when he was writing. And he probably wrote his sonnets when he got the mood, or when a patron asked him to. Even so, the vulnerability and range of emotions conveyed by the sonnets hints that many of them were also deeply personal, perhaps reflecting real events or personal relationships in his own life now lost to time. Many seem to aim deep into his soul, allowing us to catch tantalizing glimpses of the artist in his most private and vulnerable moments.

Shakespeare’s sonnets are not his meatiest works, but in many ways they are his most accessible. Gaining an appreciation of these short, tender lines can only help the modern reader develop a richer understanding of Shakespeare the artist and provide a bridge to his meatier works, where he explores other, often darker, facets of human existence.