his priuate friends." This was in 1598, and in the next year two of them (138 and 144) were printed in The Passionate Pilgrim. We do not know that any of the others were published before 1609. They were probably written at intervals during many years. "Some, if we were to judge by their style, belong to the time when Romeo and Juliet was written. Others—as, for example, 66–74—echo the sadder tone which is heard in Hamlet and Measure for Measure" (Dowden). It is evident that there is a gap of at least three years (see 104) between 99 and the following group (100–112).
The theories concerning these interesting poems cannot even be enumerated in the space at our command. "Some have looked on them as one poem; some as several poems—of groups of sonnets; some as containing a separate poem in each sonnet. They have been supposed to be written in Shakespeare's own person, or in the character of another, or of several others; to be autobiographical or heterobiographical, or allegorical; to have been addressed to Lord Southampton, to Sir William Herbert, to his own wife, to Lady Rich, to his child, to his nephew, to himself, to his muse. The 'W. H.' in the dedication has been interpreted as William Herbert, William Hughes, William Hathaway, William Hart (his nephew), William Himself, and Henry Wriothesly" (Fleay)[1]
For our own part, we find it as difficult to believe that some of the Sonnets are autobiographical as that others are not; and all that has been written to prove that 1–126 are all addressed to the same person fails to convince us. It is clear enough that certain sets (like 1–17, for instance)
- ↑ Some of these theories are discussed in the extracts given below from Dowden's Introduction to his valuable edition of the Sonnets. For an admirable resume of the entire literature of the subject, see the larger edition of Dowden (London, 1881), Part II. of the Introduction, pp. 36–110.
