Before Renaissance, English poetry was largely composed of national epics and ballads. In a strict sense, the only poet that endows us with personal emotion and interest of characters is Chaucer, as a contrast to the mere record of incidents in medi romance. It was not until the time of Renaissance that English poetry began to flourish and genius poets sprouted, William Shakespeare, Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, etc., as a result of the rising interest in the thought of Humanism. Although William Shakespeare is more renowned as a dramatist, his contribution to English poetry finds no opponent. The first published poem of Shakespeare is “Venus and Adonis”, a narrative poem that arose immediate popularity. The poem bases its story on the love affair between Venus, the goddess of beauty and love, and a handsome young man Adonis. It is not hard to find Shakespeare as a passionate young man in the poem for it is overwhelmed with beautiful descriptions of love towards nature and life. Another narrative poem, “The Rape of Lurece” displays a tragic story of a virtuous and beautiful lady. In this poem, Shakespeare shows his talent as a poet by his elaborate artistic skills.

Sonnets make up of majority of Shakespeare’s poetry work. Shakespeare did not originate the sonnet form. The basic structure of the sonnet arose in medi Italy, its most prominent exponent being the Early Renaissance poet Petrarch. The appearance of English sonnets, however, occurred when Shakespeare was an adolescent (around 1580). Both Edmund Spenser and Philip Sydney, among others, worked in this form a decade or so before Shakespeare took it up in the early 1590s, possibly seeking to exploit the ongoing popularity of the sonnet among literary patrons of the day. What we call Shakespearian sonnets today have different forms with the Italian sonnets in that the Shakespearean sonnets end with a rhymed couplet and follows the rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg. In 1609, “Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Never before Imprinted” was published, which collected 154 sonnets commonly thought to be written between 1593 and 1599. Concerning the content, these sonnets can roughly be categorized into three groups: sonnet 1—17 addressed a young man’s love of a lady; sonnet 18—126 describe the young man’s relationship with another young male poet; sonnet 127—154 portrait a mysterious dark-haired lady. Given this and the intimacy of the themes broached by Shakespeare in the sonnets, it is natural that scholars would entertain a search for autobiographical sources, and that this search would focus on three identity issues: (1) who is the young man to whom Sonnets 1-126 are addressed? (2) who is the Dark Lady of Sonnets 127-154? (3) who are the rival poets who intrude in the love triangles of Sonnets 78 through 86? Although piles of works are published in search of the answers to these questions (which may lead to ill suspicion of his personal life), Shakespeare never ceases to impress the reader with the beauty of his poetry.

 

Sonnet XXIX.

“When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes”

 

 

 

 

WHEN in disgrace with fortune¹ and men's eyes  

I all alone beweep my outcast state,      

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless² cries, 

And look upon myself, and curse my fate,   

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,               5

Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd³,      

Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope⁴,      

With what I most enjoy contented least;

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising⁵,    

Haply⁶ I think on thee,-and then my state,               10

Like to the lark at break of day arising  

From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;  

  For thy⁷ sweet love remember'd such wealth brings 

  That then I scorn to change my state with kings.      

 

 

 

Notes:

 

1.        fortune: fate

 

2.        bootless: useless

 

3.        having someone’s pretty face and enjoying friends’ companion like others do

 

4.        art: ability; scope: range of knowledge

 

5.        despising: desperate

 

6.        haply: by chance

 

7.        thy: your

 

 

 

 

 

 Sonnet XXX.

“When to the sessions of sweet silent thought”  

 

 

WHEN to the sessions¹ of sweet silent thought    

I summon up remembrance of things past,   

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,      

And with old woes² new wail my dear times' waste:    

Then can I drown an eye, unus'd to flow³,                 5

For precious friends hid in death's dateless night³,

And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd⁴ woe,

And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:  

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,     

And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er⁵                  10

The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan⁶,   

Which I new pay as if not paid before. 

  But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,    

  All losses are restor'd⁷ and sorrows end.   

 

Notes:

 

1.        session: series

 

2.        woe: sorrow

 

3.        then can I weep for my valued friend, who is now in the hands of Death, with my eyes swelling with   tears.    unus’d: unused

 

4.        cancell’d: cancelled, balanced

 

5.        tell o’er: tell over, repeat

 

6.        fore-bemoaned moan: sadness brought by bitter memories

 

7.        restor’d: restored, regained

 

 

 

Sonnet CXVI.

“Let me not to the marriage of true minds”

 

 

 

 

LET me not to the marriage¹ of true minds  

Admit impediments². Love is not love  

Which alters when it alteration finds,    

Or bends with the remover to remove:  

O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,                          5

That looks on tempests and is never shaken; 

It is the star to every wandering bark³,  

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken⁴.      

Love 's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks    

Within his bending sickle's compass come⁵;               10

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,    

But bears it out even to the edge of doom⁶.  

  If this be error, and upon me prov'd, 

  I never writ⁷, nor no man ever lov'd. 

Notes:

 

1.        marriage: combination

 

2.        impediment: barrier

 

3.        bark: boat

 

4.        whose value is priceless, although it is high up in the sky

 

5.        no beautiful faces would escape from the sickle of time; compass: range

 

6.        love will not bend even at the time of death

 

7.        writ: write