Produced by D Alexander, Stephanie Eason, Juliet Sutherland and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
Testimony of the Sonnets
as to the Authorship
of the Shakespearean
Plays and Poems
By Jesse Johnson
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
1899
Copyright, 1899
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
Entered at Stationers' Hall, London
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
DEDICATED TO
ALBERT E. LAMB
PARTNER AND FRIEND FOR TWENTY YEARS
OF THE ROYAL LINE OF LOYAL GENTLEMEN
CONTENTS
Introductory
Scope and effect of the discussion 1-5
Chapter I
The Sonnets contain a message from their author; they
portray his real emotions, and are to be read and
interpreted literally 7-18
Chapter II
They indicate that the friend or patron of the poet was a
young man, and of about the age of Shakespeare;
and that their author was past middle life, and considerably
older than Shakespeare 19-48
Chapter III
Direct statements showing that the Sonnets were not
written by their accredited author--were not written
by Shakespeare 49-58
Chapter IV
The known facts of Shakespeare's history reveal a character
entirely inconsistent with, and radically different
from, the revelations of the Sonnets as to the character
of their author 59-72
Chapter V
The general scope and effect of the Sonnets inconsistent
with the theory that they were written by Shakespeare 73-96
Chapter VI
The results of the discussion summarized 97-99
INTRODUCTORY
The Shakespearean Sonnets are not a single or connected work like an
ordinary play or poem. Their composition apparently extended over a
considerable time, which may be fairly estimated as not less than four
years. Read literally they seem to portray thoughts, modes or
experiences fairly assignable to such a period. Though variable and
sometimes light and airy in their movement, the greater portion appear
to reveal deep and intense emotion, the welling and tumultous floods
of the inner life of their great author. And their difficulty or
mystery is, that they indicate circumstances, surroundings,
experiences and regrets that we almost instinctively apprehend could
not have been those of William Shakespeare at the time they were
written, when he must have been in the strength of early manhood, in
the warmth and glow of recent and extraordinary advancement and
success.
It is this difficulty that apparently has caused many to believe that
their literal meaning cannot be accepted, and that we must give to
them, or to many of them, a secondary meaning, founded on affectations
or conceits relating to different topics or persons, or that at least
we should not allow that in them the poet is speaking of himself.
Others, like Grant White, simply allow and state the difficulty and
leave it without any suggestion of solution.
Before conceding, however, that the splendid poetry contained in the
Sonnets must be sundered or broken, or the apparent reality of its
message doubted or denied, or that its message is mysterious or
inexplicable--we should carefully inquire whether there is not some
view or theory which will avoid the difficulties which have so baffled
inquiry.
I believe that there is such a view or theory, and that view is--that
the Sonnets were not written by Shakespeare, but were written to him
as the patron or friend of the poet; that while Shakespeare may have
been the author of some plays produced in his name at the theatre
where he acted, or while he may have had a part in conceiving or
framing the greater plays so produced, there was another, a great
poet, whose dreamy and transforming genius wrought in and for them
that which is imperishable, and so wrought although he was to have no
part in their fame and perhaps but a small financial recompense; and
that it is the loves, griefs, fears, forebodings and sorrows of the
student and recluse, thus circumstanced and confined, that the Sonnets
portray.
Considering that the Sonnets were so written, there is no need of any
other than a literal and natural reading or interpretation. Commencing
in expressions of gratulation and implied flattery, as they proceed,
they appear to have been written as the incidents, fears and griefs
which they indicate from time to time came; and it may well be that
they were written not for publication, but as vents or expressions of
a surcharged heart. With such a view of the situation of the poet and
of his patron, we may not only understand much that otherwise is
inexplicable, but we may understand why so much and such resplendent
poetry is lavished on incidents so bare, meagre, and commonplace, and
why they present both poet and patron with frailties and faults naked
and repellant; and we can the better palliate and forgive the weakness
and subjection which the Sonnets indicate on the part of their author.
With such a reading the Sonnets become a chronicle of the modes and
feelings of their author, resembling in this respect the _In Memoriam_
of Tennyson; and their poetry becomes deeper and better, often
equalling, if not surpassing in pathos and intensity anything in the
greater Shakespearean plays.
Such is the result or conclusion to which the discussion which follows
is intended to lead. I shall not, however, ask the reader to accept
any such conclusion or result merely because it removes difficulties
or because it makes or rather leaves the poetry better; but I shall
present--that the Sonnets contain direct testimony, testimony not
leading to surmise or conjecture, but testimony which would authorize
a judgment in a court of law, that the Sonnets were not written by
Shakespeare, and that they very strongly indicate that Shakespeare
was the friend or patron to whom so many of them are addressed.
How such a conclusion from such testimony may be affected by arguments
drawn from other sources I shall not discuss, contenting myself if
into the main and larger controversy I have succeeded in introducing
the effect and teaching of this, certainly, very valuable and
important testimony.
TESTIMONY OF THE SONNETS AS TO THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE SHAKESPEAREAN
PLAYS AND POEMS
CHAPTER I
OF THE CHARACTER OF THE SONNETS AND THEIR RELATION TO THE OTHER WORKS
OF THE SAME AUTHOR
In these pages I propose an examination and study of the Shakespearean
Sonnets, for the purpose of ascertaining what information may be
derived from them as to the authorship of the Shakespearean plays and
poems. I am aware that any question or discussion as to their
authorship is regarded with objection or impatience by very many. But
to those not friendly to any such inquiry I would say, let us at least
proceed so far as to learn precisely what the author of these great
dramas says of himself and of his work in the only production in
which he in any manner refers to or speaks of himself. Certainly an
inquiry confined to such limits is appropriate, at least is not
disloyal. And if we study the characters of Hamlet, Juliet or
Rosalind, do we not owe it to the poet whose embodiments or creations
they are, that we should study his character in the only one of his
works in which his own surroundings and attachments, loves and fears,
griefs and forebodings, appear to be at all indicated?
From the Homeric poems, Mr. Gladstone undertook to gather what they
indicate as to the religion, morals and customs of the time; of the
birthplace of the poet, and of the ethnology and migrations of the
Hellenic peoples. Those poems were not written for any such purpose;
they were for a people who, in the main, on all those subjects knew or
believed as did their author. And it is both curious and instructive
to note how much information as to that distant period Mr. Gladstone
was able to gather from the circumstances, incidents, and implications
of the Homeric poetry. The value of such deductions no one can
question. We may reject as myths the Trojan War or the wanderings or
personality of Ulysses, but from these poems we certainly learn much
of the method of warfare, navigation, agriculture, and of the social
customs of those times.
So reading these Sonnets, we may perhaps not believe that the grief or
love of the poet or the beauty of his friend was quite as great as the
poetry indicates. But we may fairly take as correct what he says of
his friend or of himself, as to their relations and companionship, the
incidents and descriptions, which were but the framework on which he
wove his poetic wreaths of affection, compliment, or regret.
But before entering on this inquiry, it is quite relevant to ascertain
what relation these Sonnets bear to the Shakespearean plays and poems.
The works of Shakespeare, as published, contain thirty-seven separate
plays. Most of them are of the highest order, and rank with the most
consummate products of poetic genius. But criticism seems to have
established, and critics seem to agree, that in the works accredited
to him are plays of a lower order, which certainly are not from the
same author as the remainder, and especially the greater plays. In
this widely different and lower class, criticism seems to be agreed in
placing the greater portion of _Pericles_, _Titus Andronicus_,
_Timon of Athens_, two parts of _Henry VI._, and _Henry
VIII._[1] In addition to those, there are at least ten plays not now
published as Shakespeare's, that are conceded to be of a lower order and
by a different author, but which, apart from internal evidence, can be
almost as certainly shown to be his work as many of the greater of the
recognized Shakespearean plays. In the same high class of poetry as
the greater of these dramas are the Sonnets; and they are
unmistakably, and I think concededly, the work of the author of those
greater plays.
It is of our poet, as the author of these greater dramas as well as of
the Sonnets, that we would seek to learn in the study of the Sonnets.
It is only in the Sonnets that the poet speaks in the first person, or
allows us any suggestion of himself. His dramas reveal to us the
characters he has imagined and desires to portray; but they reveal
nothing of the author. His two great poems are dramatic in substance
and equally fail to give us any hint of their creator; but in the
Sonnets his own is the character whose thoughts and emotions are
stated. There we come nearest to him; and there it would seem that we
should be able to learn very much of him. Perhaps we shall find that
they do not present him at his best; it may be that they were intended
only for the eye of the friend or patron to whom they are addressed.
Perhaps they reveal the raveled sleeve, the anxieties of a straitened
life and of narrow means. Certainly, while they reveal the wonderful
fertility, resource, and fancy of the poet, they do not indicate that
in outward semblance, surroundings or history their author was either
fortunate or happy; and as we read them, sometimes we may feel that we
are entering the poet's heart-home unbidden and unannounced. But if we
have come there when it is all unswept and ungarnished, may we not the
more certainly rely on what it indicates?
Before entering on the study of the Sonnets we may inquire what, if
anything, there is, distinctive of our great poet, the recognition of
which may aid us in their interpretation.
Taine says that "the _creative_ power is the poet's greatest gift, and
communicates an extraordinary significance to his words"; and further,
that "he had the prodigious faculty of seeing in a twinkling of an eye
a complete character."[2]
The poet does not bring those characters to us by description, but he
causes them to speak in words so true and apposite to the character he
conceives that we seem to know the individuals from what they say and
not from what the poet wrote or said. But the poet goes much farther,
and in all his works presents surroundings and accessories, impalpable
but certain, which fit the characters and their moods and actions. The
picture of morning in _Venus and Adonis_ is apposite to the rich,
sensuous and brilliant colorings of the queen of love; the reference
in _Romeo and Juliet_ to the song of the nightingale "on yond'
pomegranate tree" is but an incident to the soft, warm and
love-inviting night; Rosalind moves and talks to the quickstep of the
forest; in _Macbeth_ the incantation of the witches is but the outward
expression of an overmastering fate, whose presence is felt throughout
the play. Let us then, in studying the Sonnets, consider that they are
from the same great master as the dramas. And we shall be thus
prepared, where the meaning seems plain and obvious, to believe that
the writer meant what he said, and to reject any interpretation which
implies that when he came to speak of himself he said what he did not
mean, or filled the picture with descriptions, situations or emotions,
incongruous or inappropriate. And if in so reading they seem clear and
connected, fanciful and far-drawn interpretations will not be adopted.
We should not distort or modify their meaning in order to infer that
they are imitations of Petrarch, or that the genius of the poet,
cribbed and confined by the fashion of the time, forgot to soar, and
limped and waddled in the footsteps of the inconspicuous sonneteers
of the Elizabethan era.
I would illustrate my meaning. Sonnet CXXVI. is sometimes said to be
an invocation to Cupid.[3] That seems to me to destroy all its grace
and beauty. The first two lines of the Sonnet,
O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power
Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his sickle, hour--
are quite appropriate, if addressed to the god of love. But the lines
succeeding are quite the reverse. In effect they say that you have not
grown old because Nature, idealized as an active personality, has
temporarily vanquished Time, but will soon obtain the full audit. If
the Sonnet is addressed to the god of love it reduces him to the
limitations of mortality; if it is addressed to his friend, it
indicates that, though but for a little while, Nature has lifted him
to an attribute of immortality. The latter interpretation makes the
poet enlarge and glorify his subject; the former makes him belittle
it, and bring the god of love to the audit of age and the ravage of
wrinkles. This is the last sonnet of the first series; with the next
begins the series relating to his mistress. Reading it literally,
considering it as addressed to his friend, it is sparkling and poetic,
a final word, loving, admonitory, in perfect line and keeping with the
central thought of all that came before. From this Sonnet, interpreted
as I indicate, I shall try to find assistance in this study. But if it
is a mere poetical ascription to Cupid, it, of course, tells us
nothing except that its author was a poet.
I should not, however, leave this subject without stating that the
fanciful interpretation of these Sonnets does not seem to be favored
by more recent authors. I find no indication of such an interpretation
in Taine's _English Literature_, or in Grant White's edition of
Shakespeare. Professor Edward Dowden, universally recognized as a fair
and competent critic, says: "The natural sense, I am convinced, is the
true one."[4] Hallam says: "No one can doubt that they express not
only real but intense emotions of the heart."[5] Professor Tyler, in a
work relating to the Sonnets, says: "The impress of reality is
stamped on these Sonnets with unmistakable clearness."[6] Mr. Lee,
while regarding some of these as mere fancies, obviously finds that
many of them treated of facts.[7] Mr. Dowden, in a work devoted to the
Sonnets, states very fully the views which have been expressed by
different authors in relation to them. His quotations occupy sixty
pages and, I think, clearly show that the weight of authority is
decidedly in favor of allowing them their natural or primary meaning.
There are one hundred and fifty-four of these Sonnets. The last two
are different in theme and effect from those which go before, and may
perhaps not improperly be considered as mere exercises in poetizing.
They have no connection with the others, and I would have no
contention with those who regard them as suggested by Petrarch, or as
complaisant imitations of the vogue or fashion of that time. Those two
Sonnets I leave out of this discussion, and would have what may be
here said, understood as applying only to the one hundred and
fifty-two remaining.
These one hundred and fifty-two Sonnets I will now insist have a
common theme. Most of them may be placed in groups which seem to be
connected and somewhat interdependent. Those groups may perhaps, in
some cases, be placed in different orders, without seriously affecting
the whole. To that extent they are disconnected. But in whatever order
those groups are placed, through them runs the same theme--the
relations of the poet to his friend or patron, and to his mistress,
the mistress of his carnal love, who is introduced only because the
poet fears that she has transferred her affections or favors to his
friend, wounding and wronging him in his love or desire for each.
It is easy to pick out many Sonnets which may be read as disconnected
and independent poetry. But very many more verses could be selected
from _In Memoriam_ that can be read independently of the remainder of
that poem. And there are none of the Sonnets, however they may read
standing alone, that do not fit the mode and movement of those with
which they stand connected. There is, I submit, no more reason for
sundering Sonnets of that class from the others, than there is for
taking the soliloquy of Hamlet from the play that bears his name.
This statement of the theme and the connected character of the Sonnets
is not essential to the views I shall present. Nevertheless, if it is
accepted, if we are able to agree that they all are relevant and
apposite to a common theme, it strengthens the proposition that we
should seek for them a literal meaning and should reject any
construction which would make any of their description or movement
incongruous to any other part. Of course we shall expect to find in
them the enlargement or exaggeration of poetic license. But so doing
we must recall the characteristics of their great author, who with all
exaggeration preserves harmony and symmetry of parts, and harmony and
correspondence in all settings and surroundings. With such views of
what is fair and helpful in interpretation, I propose to proceed to a
closer view of the first one hundred and fifty-two of what are known
as the Sonnets of Shakespeare.
Footnotes:
[1] Brandes's _William Shakespeare, a Critical Study_. Temple edition
of Shakespeare, introduction to plays above named.
[2] Taine's _English Literature_, pp. 83, 84.
[3] Lee's _Life of Shakespeare_, p. 27. The Sonnet is printed in full
at p. 28.
[4] Dowden, _Shakespeare: His Mind and Art_, pp. 102, 103.
[5] Hallam's _Literature of Europe_, Vol. II., Chap. V.
[6] Tyler, _Shakespeare's Sonnets_, p. 10.
[7] Lee's _Life of Shakespeare_, pp. 97, 125, 126.