The Poet of Poets

April brings us National Poetry Month and we’ll kick it off with an examination of Shakespeare’s collection of sonnets.

                                            

Shakespeare’s sonnets are perhaps the most recognized poems in the literary world. The collection deals with themes such as: love, beauty, morality and time, all which contain the very essence of the English Renaissance.  But it is difficult to provide commentary for all 154 sonnets that bare the name of Shakespeare. Every commentary is the interpretation of the author who wrote them, thus replacing the application of our very own critical thinking.

These are what people usually talk about when they talk about Shakespeare’s sonnets: 154 finely wrought poems, perhaps composed at various points in the 1590’s. Some of them are hailed as among the finest poems in English literature. The sonnets are categorized into two groups: sonnets number 1-126 seem to be addressed to a young man, a friend of the poet, while sonnets number 127-154 feature poems directed to a darkly featured woman, addressed as the poet’s difficult lover which have come to be known as “the dark lady”. However all the poems with the exception of number 126, which is 12 lines long, follow a fourteen-line pattern, with a distinct rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef gg.

Some have speculated that these two categories are a sort of poetic autobiography of Shakespeare. The theory is interesting enough, and some of the sonnets certainly do seem likely to be rooted in personal experience, but few if any direct conclusions about the facts of Shakespeare’s life can be drawn from the sonnets.

Whether or not they reflect real-life personal entanglements, these varied poems are dense and powerful, demanding and breath taking. Unlike the plays, they are designed to be read rather than enacted; unlike the longer narrative poems, they tend to bring readers back for an infinite amount of reading. No short summary could do each sonnet justice. Take your time reading each one carefully. Let your emotion guide you through each passage which I’m sure you will find at least one. Read them to your loved ones throughout this month. Follow your interpretation. Heck that’s what poetry is all about!

To learn more about Shakespeare and his sonnets read Shakespeare For Beginners!