Episode 19 - The Sonnets

Shakespeare's sonnets are often the first and perhaps the easiest entry point for beginning students. They are lovely little bite-sized poems that exist in discrete units which can be appreciated as works of deep emotion and literary beauty or in grand cycles in the poetic tradition that lead the reader through a flurry of emotion when read together with other similarly-themed sonnets. Most of all, they contain some of Shakespeare's most romantic and certainly most famous written passages.

Our study today tackles the sonnets from both angles. We consider the history of the sonnet and the tradition within which Shakespeare wrote his 154-cycle work of art, before branching out into the works themselves, looking at them within the three distinct groups scholars have identified and as works unto themselves. 

Eternal Bickering

It's a new year, a new decade, and so our newly named "Eternal Bickering" segment sees us tackling the age-old question of how to read the sonnets: Should they be considered autobiographical or not?

Notes:

- List of Sonnets (with notes)

- An Outline of the Contents of Shakespeare's Sonnets

- The 8 Types of Sonnets and How to Tell Them Apart (check out the Terza Rima, Curtal, and Modern Sonnet!)

- A fascinating article from the British Library about Mary Fitton, scandalized by her out-of-wedlock pregnancy by Shakespeare's patron, the 3rd Earl of Pembroke, and candidate for Shakespeare's Dark Lady.