Blackwell Reference Online

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And more, much more than in my verse can sit,Your own glass shows you, when you look in it.(103: 13–14)There is much that we do not know with certainty, and probably will never know, about Shakespeare's sonnets. We do not know if Shakespeare authorized publication of the 1609 quarto; therefore, we do not know if the order of the 154 sonnets and the inclusion of A Lover's Complaint represent Shakespeare's arrangement, publisher Thomas Thorpe's, or someone else's. Most commentators acknowledge the presence of narrative elements in the sonnets, ranging from individual poems structured at least in part as narrative (for example, sonnets 99 or 143) to sonnets in which there is a rich interplay, as Heather Dubrow has written, of narrative, lyric, and dramatic modes (1999: 1) and to references in other sonnets to an imperfectly rendered story that may have relevance to all the sonnets – references, that is, to characters such as the poet speaker and the unnamed young friend, rival poet or poets, and dark lady, as well as references to specific actions and events, to the passage of time, to separations and reunions, to gifts and transgressions, to shifts in fortune, power, mood, and feeling. This imperfectly told overarching story will be the focus of this essay. Considerable disagreement exists among critics about many elements of the story, if any, that the sonnets tell, or about the ... log in or subscribe to read full text