Blackwell Reference Online

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This thing of darkness I / Acknowledge mine. The Tempest , V. i. 275–6 No writer was more capable of constructing an intricate plot with dramatic developments leading to a compelling resolution than Shakespeare. Why then do the dark lady sonnets seem so disjointed? And why does Shakespeare's sonnet sequence come to such a contradictory and befuddling end? The explanation this essay proposes by reading the sonnets as a private lyric dialogue, rooted in the practice of courtship and seduction and the laws of betrothal and marriage, substantially alters the traditional view of the dark lady and Shakespeare's sonnets as a whole. While scuttling deeply ingrained critical assumptions and introducing new material, this reinterpretation touches upon some of the most fundamental and frequently debated problems the sonnets pose: How do the sonnets represent and judge the three main characters: the speaker, the young man, and the dark lady? How meaningful and authoritative is the order of the poems in the 1609 first edition? Who was the audience, and how stable is the traditional two-part division between the young man sonnets (1–126) and the dark lady sonnets (127–54)? Finally, what is the connection between poet and sonnet speaker, life and art? The sonnets as a whole are usually read as a morality play in which the young man plays “the better angel,” the idealized spirit of male friendship ... log in or subscribe to read full text