OF THE GENERAL SCOPE AND EFFECT OF THE SONNETS AS INDICATING THEIR
AUTHOR
As has been said before, the Sonnets obviously have a common theme.
They celebrate his friend, his beauty, his winning and lovable
qualities, leading the poet to forgive and to continue to love, even
when his friend has supplanted him in the favors of his mistress. They
are replete with compliment and adulation. Little side views or
perspectives are introduced with a marvellous facility of invention;
and yet in them all, even in the invocation to marry, in the jealousy
of another poet, in the railing to or of his false mistress, is the
face or thought of his friend, apparently his patron. No other poet,
it seems to me, could have filled two thousand lines of poetry with
thoughts to, of, or relating to one person of his own sex. Who that
person was critics have not agreed. But that he was a person who was
somehow connected with the life-work of the poet seems beyond
dispute.
Mr. Lee, speaking of the purpose of the Sonnets, at pages 125 and 126,
says:
'Twenty Sonnets, which may for purposes of exposition be entitled
"dedicatory" Sonnets, are addressed to one who is declared
without periphrasis and without disguise to be a patron of the
poet's verse (Nos. XXIII., XXVI., XXXII., XXXVII., XXXVIII.,
LXIX., LXXVII.-LXXXVI., C., CI., CIII., CVI.). In one of
these,--Sonnet LXXVIII.,--Shakespeare asserted:
So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse
And found such fair assistance in my verse
As every alien pen hath got my use
And _under thee their poesy disperse_.
Subsequently he regretfully pointed out how his patron's
readiness to accept the homage of other poets seemed to be
thrusting him from the enviable place of pre-eminence in his
patron's esteem.
Shakespeare's biographer is under an obligation to attempt an
identification of the persons whose relations with the poet are
defined so explicitly. The problem presented by the patron is
simple. Shakespeare states unequivocally that he has no patron
but one.
Sing [sc. O Muse!] to the ear that doth thy lays esteem,
And gives thy pen both skill and argument (C. 7-8).
For to no other pass my verses tend
Than of your _graces and your gifts to tell_ (CIII. 11-12).
The Earl of Southampton, the patron of his narrative poems, is
the only patron of Shakespeare that is known to biographical
research. No contemporary document or tradition gives the
faintest suggestion that Shakespeare was the friend or dependent
of any other man of rank.'
This quotation has been made because it is fair and accurate, because
of the high authority of the book, but principally because it is the
view of one who has no doubt that Shakespeare was the author of the
Shakespearean plays. Research and ingenuity have been taxed to
ascertain who was the unnamed and mysterious friend at whose feet are
laid so many poetic wreaths, woven by such a master. All discussion
has assumed that this friend was a patron, who somehow greatly aided
the poet, and to whom the poet felt himself greatly indebted. And so
it was at once suggested that his friend was one of the nobility or
peers of that age.
The Earl of Southampton (to whom by name _Venus and Adonis_ and
_Lucrece_ were dedicated) has been very generally assumed to be the
person intended. Lord Pembroke [William Herbert] has also been
presented as the unnamed friend.
_I think the Sonnets contain internal evidence that they were not
addressed to either of these peers_, AND WERE NOT ADDRESSED TO ANY ONE
OF THEIR CLASS.
It is very remarkable how narrow is the range of these Sonnets,--how
little they say, convey or indicate as to the person to whom they were
addressed. From the first seventeen Sonnets we infer that the poet
understood that his friend was unmarried; a line in Sonnet III.
perhaps indicates a peculiar pride in his mother, and that it pleased
him to be told that he resembled her; from a line in Sonnet XX., "A
man in hue," etc., it has been inferred that his friend's beard or
hair was auburn, and from Sonnets CXXXV. and CXXXVI. it has been
inferred that his friend was familiarly called "Will," or at any rate
that his name was William. Obviously he was in some way a patron or
helper to our poet, and to another poet as well[33]; he superseded the
poet in the favors of his mistress; he was beautiful, attractive,
genial, and sunny in disposition; that he was not infrequently
responsive to lascivious love is indicated.[34] We have already fully
considered what the Sonnets indicate as to his age. And now I put the
inquiry: Is there anything else as to the poet's friend that these two
thousand lines of poetry state or indicate? With diligent search I can
find in all those lines no other fact indicated or stated as to this
mysterious friend or patron.
In Sonnet CXXIV. the poet says:
If _my dear love were but_ the child of state,
It might for Fortune's bastard be unfather'd.
From that it has been argued that his friend was of the nobility, a
"child of state."
Reading those two lines, or reading the entire Sonnet, it seems clear
that if they contain any indication as to the station of his friend,
the indication is rather against than in favor of his being of the
nobility, "a child of state."
I do not think, however, that the lines allow any clear or certain
deduction either way, but have called attention to them because they
are often cited on this point.
In Sonnet XIII. occurs the line,
Who lets so fair a _house_ fall to decay.
The word "house" as there used has been interpreted as though used in
the sense of the House of York, and so made an implication that his
friend was of a lordly line. Such a far-fetched and unusual
interpretation should not be adopted unless clearly indicated. And the
context clearly indicates that the phrase "so fair a house" is used as
a metaphor for the poet's fair and beautiful body. If this inquiry
were to be affected by far-drawn or even doubtful interpretations, I
might quote from Sonnet LXXXVI. There the poet, referring to his
rival, says:
But when your _countenance_ fill'd up his line.
By merely limiting the word _countenance_ to its primary meaning, we
may have the inference that his rival's verse was spoken or _acted_ by
his friend, and so that his friend was an actor. I do not think,
however, that either of the two lines last cited are entitled to any
weight as argument, but they illustrate the distinction between lines
or Sonnets which may be the basis of surmise or conjecture, and those
elsewhere cited, to which two different effects cannot be given
without rending their words from their natural meaning.
* * * * *
The Earl of Southampton was born in 1573. He bore an historic name;
fields, forests, and castles were his and had come to him from his
ancestors; all of England that was most beautiful or most attractive
was in the circle in which he moved and to which his presence
contributed. In 1595 he appeared in the lists at a tournament in honor
of the Queen; in 1596 and 1597 he joined in dangerous and successful
naval and military expeditions; in 1598 he was married.[35] Is it
conceivable that two thousand lines of adulatory poetry could have
been written to and of him, and no hint appear of incidents like
these? It is simply incredible. What is omitted rather than what is
said clearly indicates that the life of the poet's friend presented no
such incidents,--indeed no incidents which the poet chronicler of
court and camp would interweave in his garlands of loving compliment.
Urging his friend to marry, the poet, comparing the harmony of music
to a happy marriage, in Sonnet VIII. says:
Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;
Resembling sire and child and happy mother,
Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one,
Sings this to thee: "Thou single wilt prove none."
But is it not a little strange that the pen that drew Rosalind and
Juliet should have gone no farther, when by a touch he could have
filled it with suggestions of the fair, the stately and the titled maidens
who were in the court life of that day, and whose names and faces and
reputed characters must have been known to the poet, whatever his place or
station in London? How would a tracing of a mother, nobly born, or of a
lordly but deceased father, of some old castle, of some fair eminence, of
some grand forest, or of ancestral oaks shading fair waters, have lightened
the picture! And could the poet who gave us the magnificent pictures of
English kings and queens, princes and lords--could that poet, writing to
and of one of the fairest of the courtly circle of the reign of Elizabeth,
so withhold his pen that it gives no hint that his friend was in or of
that circle, or any suggestion of his most happy and fortunate
surroundings? Surely, in painting so fully the beauties of his friend,
the poet would have allowed to appear some hint of the beauty of light
and color in which he moved.
I have before me in the book of Mr. Lee, a copy of the picture of the
Earl of Southampton painted in Welbeck Abbey. The dress is of the
court; and the sword, the armor, the plume and rich drapery all
indicate a member of the nobility. Could our great poet in so many
lines of extreme compliment and adulation have always omitted any
reference to the insignia of rank which were almost a part of the
young Earl; and would he always have escaped all reference to coronet
or sword, to lands or halls, or to any of the employments or sports,
privileges or honors, then much more than now, distinctive of a peer
of the realm?
And all that is here said equally repels the inference that these
Sonnets were addressed to any person connected with the nobility. The
claim that they were addressed to Lord Pembroke [William Herbert] I
think is exploded, if it ever had substance.[36] Lord Pembroke did not
come to London until 1598 and was then but eighteen years old. There
is not a particle of evidence that he and Shakespeare had any
relations or intimacy whatever.
While I regard the view that the Sonnets were addressed to Southampton
as entirely untenable, it nevertheless has this basis,--two of the
Shakespearean poems were dedicated to Southampton. At least we may
say that, if they were addressed to any person of that class, there is
a strong probability in his favor. And in order to consider that claim
I would ask the reader to turn back to Sonnet II., page 23. That
certainly is one of the very earliest of the Sonnets, almost certainly
written when Shakespeare was not older than thirty and Southampton not
over twenty-one years of age. With these facts in mind, the assumption
that those lines were addressed to the Earl of Southampton becomes
altogether improbable. Can we imagine a man of thirty, in the full
glow of a vigorous and successful life, saying to a friend of
twenty-one,--you should marry now, because when you are _forty years_
old (about twice your present age and ten years above my own) your
beauty will have faded and your blood be cold?
We should not so slander the author of the Shakespearean plays.
* * * * *
The language of the Sonnets implies a familiarity and equality of
intercourse not consistent with the theory that they were addressed
to a peer of England by a person in Shakespeare's position.[37]
The dedication of _Lucrece_, which apparently was written in 1593,
omits no reference to title, and envinces no disposition or privilege
to ignore the rank or dignities of the Earl. I will quote no
particular Sonnet on this point; but the impression which the entire
series seems to me to convey, is that the poet was addressing a friend
separated from him by no distinction of rank. Sonnets XCVI. and XCVII.
are instances of such familiarity of address and communication.
* * * * *
On the other hand, there is not a single indication which the Sonnets
contain as to the poet's friend which in any manner disagrees with
what we know of Shakespeare. It may be said that being married the
invocation to marry could not have been addressed to him. But the test
is,--how did he pass, how was he known in London, as married or unmarried?
He is supposed to have come to London in 1586, or when he was twenty-two
years of age, and he was then married and had three children. He remained
in London about twenty-five years, and there is no indication that any
member of his family ever resided there or visited him, and the clear
consensus of opinion seems to be that they did not.[38] The indications
that he had little love for his wife are regrettably clear.[39] When the
earlier Sonnets were written he must have been living there about nine
years, and must have had an income sufficient easily to have maintained
his family in the city.[40] That he led a life notoriously free as to women
cannot be questioned. Traditions elsewhere referred to so indicate[41]; and
whether the Sonnets were written by or to him they equally so testify.
Under such circumstances his friends or acquaintances would not be
led to presume that he was married, but would assume the contrary.
They would have done or considered precisely as we do, classing our
friends as married or unmarried, as their mode of life indicates.
Hence the invocation to marry is entirely consistent with the theory
that the Sonnets were addressed to Shakespeare. When Sonnet CIV. was
written, the poet had known his friend but three years[42]; the
Sonnets referring to marriage are printed first, and very probably
were written much earlier than Sonnet CIV., and perhaps when their
acquaintance was first formed. The fact that the appeal ceases with
the seventeenth Sonnet, and that after that there is not even a hint
of marrying, or of female excellence and beauty, perhaps indicates
that the first seventeen Sonnets had provoked a disclosure which
restrained the poet from further reference to those subjects.
* * * * *
The starting point in this chapter is the fact stated by Mr. Lee, and
I think conceded or assumed by all writers on these Sonnets,--that
they were written to some one intimately connected with the
Shakespearean plays, either as a patron or in some other manner. Many,
perhaps all, of the plays were produced, and in that way published, at
the theatre where Shakespeare acted. Those of the higher class or
order as well as those of the lower class were published as his. Those
most strenuous in supporting the claims of authorship for Shakespeare,
have, I think, generally conceded that the plays, as we now have them,
reveal in various parts the work of more than one author. And from
that it has been suggested that Shakespeare must have had a
fellow-worker,--a collaborator. Lee's _Shakespeare_, Brandes's
_Critical Study of Shakespeare_, and the Temple edition of
Shakespeare's works, are practically agreed on this fact in relation
to _Henry VI._, _Henry VIII._, _Titus Andronicus_, and some other
plays. There must have been a very considerable degree of intercourse
between the two persons who worked together even on a single one of
these plays. And there are Sonnets which at least suggest a degree
and kind of intercourse and communication between the poet and his
friend which such a relation would require.
Chiding his friend for absence in Sonnets LVII. and LVIII., the poet
indicates such waiting and watching as would come to him had their
relations been very intimate, and perhaps indicates that he and his
friend lodged together.
Those Sonnets are as follows:
Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the _hours_ and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor _services_ to do, _till you require_.
Nor dare I chide the _world-without-end hour_
Whilst I, my sovereign, _watch the clock for you_,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour
When you have bid your servant once adieu;
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
_Where you may be_, or your affairs suppose,
But, _like a sad slave, stay_ and think of nought
Save, _where you are how happy_ you make those.
So true a fool is love that in your will,
Though you do anything, he thinks no ill.
That God forbid that made me first your slave,
I should _in thought control your times of pleasure_,
Or at your hand the account of _hours_ to crave,
Being your vassal, _bound to stay your leisure_!
O, let me suffer, being at your beck,
The imprison'd absence of your liberty;
And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check,
Without accusing you of injury.
Be where you list, your charter is so strong
That _you yourself may privilege your time
To what you will_; to you it doth belong
Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime.
I am to _wait_, though waiting so be hell,
Not _blame your pleasure_, be it ill or well.
I am not unaware that there are other Sonnets which indicate that they
lived apart, though it is of course quite possible that they lived
apart at one time and together at another. But whether or not they at
any time lodged together, these Sonnets indicate that their lives were
brought together by some common purpose, and that hours and seasons of
communication and perhaps of kindred labor were frequent to them. Our
affections or friendships do not blossom in untilled fields; it is the
comradeship of common effort, mutually helpful and beneficial, that
more than often determines the impalpable garments and coverings of
our lives. Certainly we may believe that the two characters that fill
these two thousand lines of poetry did not live and move so far apart
as were the busy actor at a theatre and the courted and adventurous
peer of England.
If the friend to whom the Sonnets were addressed was Shakespeare, and
if the author of the Sonnets and of the accredited Shakespearean plays
was some "pale, wasted," and unknown student who sold his labors and
his genius to another, we may perhaps see how they would have had
frequent interviews and hours of labor, and how Shakespeare might have
had all the relations to the poet, which the Sonnets imply of the
poet's friend. But if Shakespeare, then well advanced both to fame and
fortune, was the poet it is very difficult to imagine any one person
who could have borne to him all the relations which the Sonnets
indicate--patron or benefactor and familiar associate and companion; a
rival and successor in the favors of his mistress, and a loved or at
least cherished friend.
While I present the view that some unknown student wrote, and
Shakespeare adopted and published, the Shakespearean plays, I do not
deny to Shakespeare a part, perhaps a large part, in their production.
As I have said, there are many plays attributed to Shakespeare, some
or the greater portions of which are distinctively of a lower class
than the greater plays or the Sonnets. The theory of collaboration
affects at least six plays commonly classed as Shakespearean, and
perhaps others classed as doubtful plays. Why is not the situation
satisfied if we ascribe to Shakespeare a capacity equal to the
composition of _Titus Andronicus_? That is a play which seems to have
been attractive from its plot and the character of its incidents. In
it, however, there are but few lines that seem to be from the same
author as the Sonnets and the greater of the recognized Shakespearean
plays. The remainder of the play has no poetic merit which raises it
far above the rustic poetry which is handed down by tradition as
Shakespeare's. And if we give the unknown student all credit for
authorship of the finer poetry of the greater dramas, may we not still
assume that Shakespeare labored with him, assisting in moulding into
form adapted to the stage the poetry that burst from his friend with
volcanic force; or that he perhaps sometimes suggested the side lights
and sudden transitions which appear so often,--for instance, in the
grave scene in _Hamlet_ or the nurse's part in _Romeo and Juliet_?[43]
And if some great unknown was the sole author and Shakespeare was the
publisher and was to take part in the representation of these plays,
may we not still, however they lodged, find ample occasion for the
waiting hours of the poet, which would be entirely unexplained if the
person addressed was the Earl of Southampton or some other member of
the nobility?
Such a view explains very much which is otherwise inexplicable. If
into that series of publications came the genius of the unknown author
of the Sonnets, touching some of the plays like stray sunbeams, and as
the work progressed absorbing and filling all their framework,--it
must yet be assumed that he did not labor without recompense. And so
we may believe that Shakespeare from friend became patron, and that
this employment, coming as the poet was passing to life's "steepy
night," gave him the means and the leisure for those dreams of lovers,
of captains and of kings, so visioned on his brain that he wrote of
them as of persons real and living. So regarding the author of the
Sonnets, we appreciate his jealousy, when (as perhaps in _Henry
VIII._) another and almost equal poet was employed, and may understand
how he could blame his false mistress and yet forgive his friend. His
poetry and the opportunity and leisure for its enjoyment was his real
mistress, like the love of Andromache for Hector displacing and
absorbing all other loves.
* * * * *
If the Sonnets were written by Shakespeare, who the friend and patron
so intimately related to the poet and his work was, is a riddle still
unsolved; but if they were written by some unknown poet, the obvious
and reasonable inference is that they were addressed to
Shakespeare.[44]
It may be asked why I would leave anything as the work of Shakespeare,
if I deny to him the authorship of the greater plays. My answer is
this: I believe he did not write the Sonnets; and if the Sonnets are
the work of another, I think it fairly follows that the great dramas,
considered as mere poetry, are so clearly in the same class as the
Sonnets, that we must ascribe the authorship of the greater
Shakespearean dramas to the same great unknown.
When it is once agreed that any considerable portions of the plays
credited to Shakespeare are from different authors, almost the entire
force of the argument resting on report or tradition is destroyed;
because report or tradition is about equally satisfied and equally
antagonized by ascribing to him the authorship of either section into
which the admission of dual authorship concedes that they are divided.
That Shakespeare must have had a genius for dramatic work,--though not
necessarily for poetry,--his success as a reputed dramatist and as a
manager, all his history and traditions, very clearly indicate. And
conceding him that, why is not the situation fully satisfied by
considering that he was the lesser, or one of the lesser, rather than
the greater of the collaborators; and that his knowledge of the stage
and his talent for conceiving proper dramatic effects or situations,
made his labors valuable to the greater poet, aiding him to give to
his works a dramatic form and movement which many other great poets
have entirely failed to attain. So considering, the Shakespearean
plays will in some degree still seem to us the work of the gentle
Shakespeare, although in large part the product of the older and more
mature mind, the dreaming and loving recluse and student, who could
say,--
_Your name_ from hence immortal life shall have,
Though _I_, once gone, to all the world must die:
The earth can yield _me_ but a common grave,
When _you_ entombed in men's eyes shall lie.
And so believing, may we not still go with reverent feet to that grave
upon the Avon? For there, as I conceive, sleeps he whose sunny graces
won the undying love of the greatest of lovers and of poets, and whose
assistance and support made possible the dreaming hours and days in
which were delivered from his loving friend's overburdened brain the
marvellous and matchless creations of the Shakespearean anthology.
Footnotes:
[33] Sonnets LXXVIII., LXXIX., LXXX., LXXXV., LXXXVI.
[34] Sonnets XCV. and XCVI.
[35] Lee's _Shakespeare_, pp. 377-380.
[36] Lee's _Shakespeare_, p. 406.
[37] It was not until 1596 or 1599 that a coat of arms was granted to
John Shakespeare, the father of William. That appears to have been
granted on the application of the son, and to have been allowed, in
part at least, because his wife, the mother of William, was the
daughter of Robert Arden, gentleman. The grant gave the father the
title of Esquire and not of Gentleman. Lee's _Shakespeare_, pp.
187-190.
[38] Lee's _Shakespeare_, p. 26; Halliwell's _Life of Shakespeare_, p.
133; Grant White's _Introductory Life of Shakespeare_, pp. 25, 42.
[39] Lee's _Shakespeare_, pp. 22-26, 273, 274.
[40] Halliwell's _Shakespeare_, p. 172, Lee's _Shakespeare_, pp.
193-196.
[41] See pp. 68-70, _supra_.
[42] The portion of Sonnet CIV. relevant to this point is printed at
page 26, _supra_.
[43] These plays contain names of places and persons, and allusions
and references, which could hardly have been made had Shakespeare been
a stranger to their composition. In _As You Like It_, the forest has
his mother's family name, "Arden"; the allusion to Sir Thomas Lucy,
has already been noticed. Page 63, _supra_.
[44] While I speak of the poet of the Sonnets and of the greater plays
as unknown, I can but believe that the Sonnets, when carefully studied
in connection with contemporaneous history and chronicles, will yet
afford an adequate clew to his identification. It occurs to me that a
promising line of inquiry might be made on this assumption,--that the
poet was born about twenty years before Shakespeare and died soon
after the production of the plays ceased, or when about sixty-five or
seventy years of age; that he had reverses and disappointments,
perhaps humiliations; that his name was William, and that he had
written other works before he wrote the Shakespearean plays. It is
also possible, although I think not probable, that the initials, W.
H., appearing in the introduction to these Sonnets may refer to him.
That he had produced earlier works, I think is shown by Sonnet LXXVI.
The first lines of that Sonnet are as follows:
"Why is my verse so barren of new pride,
So far from variation of quick change?
Why with the time do I not glance aside
To new-found methods and to compounds strange?
_Why write I still all one, ever the same,
And keep inventions in a noted weed,
That every word doth almost tell my name_,
Showing their birth and where they did proceed?"