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Shakespeare sonnets; were they his inner feelings?

by Gwen Herat

'From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dressed in all her trim.
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,
That heavy Saturn laughed and leapt with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue
Could make me any summer's story tell.
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grow;
Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose.
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
You seemed in winter still, and, you away,
As with your shadow I with these did play.'

- Sonnet XCVIII

The puzzle in the sonnets were really created by the publisher and not necessarily to create a doubt but rather as an author's dedication. The phrase 'onlie begetter' apparently refers to the one who inspired the sonnets. He was a young man though interpreted as an illusion was really the Earl of Southampton that we were to discover later. Mr. W.H. is the biggest puzzle in the triangle i.e. the publisher, the author and the young man referred to. To throw some light on this is the following dedication (note the spelling)

To. The onlie. Begetter. Of these. Insving. Sonnets.

Mr. W.H. All Happinesse. And that. Eternitie. Promised.

By Ovr. Everliving. Poet.

However, it was a dedication by the publisher, Thomas Thorpe over Shakespeare's name just like the two narrative poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece published in 1593 and 1594 respectively to the Earl of Southampton.

These are some of the morbid characters from Shakespeare plays that may have prompted him to ‘unlock’ his heart in the Sonnets that revealed his sexual tendencies.

Shakespeare 'unlocked' his heart through the sonnets. All the sonnets are clearly addressed to a young man and among the first 126, there is pathos, regret loneliness and a sense of betrayal. Shakespeare being the ultimate professional writer, betrayed himself by submitting to emotion. Sonnets CXVII to CXX are a clear display of the poet's regrets and a lapse in his own fidelity.

Elsewhere in yet another sonnet, he speaks of a rift in the relationship for which his friend is responsible. One has to study the sonnets individually and not as a follow-on to grasp the various subdivisions. There is also a hint of frustration that may have resulted from his marriage to Anne Hathaway who was eight years senior to him. There is an irregular form in Sonnet CXXVI and if am to quote the first passage,

'O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power,
Dost hold Time's fickle glass his sickle hour;
Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st
Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow'st...

The turning point in the sequences of Shakespeare's emotion, may have diversified his moods and unconsciously 'unlooked' deep sensuality to Mr. WH who later turned out to be Mr. Henry Wriothsley, the Earl of Southampton. Very often Anne Hathaway was set against Southampton though not directly and the 'Dark Lady' he refers to was not his wife.

'Two loves, I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still;
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman colour'd ill
To win me soon to hell, my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my side.
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
And whether that my angel be turn'd fiend;
Suspect I may yet not directly tell.
But being both from me, both to each friend
I guess our angel in another's hell.
Yet this shall I nev'r know but how to doubt
Till my bad angel fire my good one out.'

- Sonnet CXLIV

The riddle of Mr. WH continued even seven years after Shakespeare died, prompting yet another school of thought based on the initials WH to be William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke who was one of the dedicatee in 1623 in Shakespeare's First Folio.

It could have also been a boy actor called Willie Hughes who was the central figure in Oscar Wilde's story The Portrait of Mr. WH. The name of 'Will' is used in two sonnets. Or still on the subject, was it sometime unknown to posterity.

Then who was the 'Dark Lady' that many scholars believe to be the Earl of Southampton. Attempts to identify her have proved futile nor the rival poet referred to along with her. But Shakespeare gets tangled in the transience of beauty and with the power of love and later sail on to the power of love that creates fragility and illusions which ultimately have a toll on his conscious with humiliation. This direct him into the subject of emotional and sexual soul of body's frailty. How Shakespeare coped with this ghastly situation is interred within the folds of his sonnets.

They are deeply buried and as one keep sweeping aside the dust of centuries, different pictures emerge. I have often seen him as a homosexual also as a man betrayed by love and therefore finds a glimmer of hope in the face of young Southampton who had a beautiful face with the body of a man. The 'Dark Lady' however remains a mystery but is obvious she was the target of his emotions.

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