The Sonnets – Sonnet 1- 17 – “ From fairest creatures we desire increase…”

The Sonnets – Sonnet 1- 17 – “ From fairest creatures we desire increase…”

Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets were published in a 1609 quarto edition by publisher Thomas Thorpe. We do not know whether this edition was an authorized or unauthorized edition but the inclusion of the narrative poem ‘A Lover’s Complaint’ (which is dubiously attributed to Shakespeare) at the end in an appendix to ‘The Sonnets’ probably suggests that it was unauthorised. Although Thorpe’s edition says on the cover “SHAKE-SPEARE’S SONNETS: Never before imprinted” some had been printed before such as Sonnet 138 and Sonnet 144 which had appeared in the poetry collection entitled ‘The Passionate Pilgrim’.

The sonnets are assumed to have been written from 1592 until about 1607, although some place the writing of the earliest sonnet to as early as 1588 and some believe that the last sonnet was written in 1599. Shakespeare’s sonnets are based on the Italian Renaissance sonnet form invented by the poet Petrarch often known as the Petrarchan sonnet form. This form can normally be separated into two segments – the octave (normally with the rhyming pattern of ABBAABBA or even ABBACDDC) and the sestet (normally CDCDCD or even CDECDE). In Elizabethean England, the sonnet form was rejuvenated by lyric poets like Sir Philip Sydney. Shakespeare became the master of the new Elizabethean form sometimes even known to us now as the Shakespearean sonnet. Shakespeare’s sonnets are of the 14 line sonnet form comprising three four line (un-separated) stanzas and ending with a final rhyming couplet. The dominant poetic rhythm of his sonnets particularly in the final rhyming couplet is an iambic pentameter (a line comprising five feet or beats or stressed beats which alternate unstressed then stressed beats which some describe as the rhythm of a heartbeat). At least one of his sonnets breaks with this pattern and has an iambic tetrameter. The rhyming scheme of Shakespeare’s sonnets is normally ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. The three quatrains often build the sequence to the volta (also known as the twist or turn) at the end of the third quatrain and then the final rhyming couplet gives us the crux, the twist or a revelation to end the sonnet.

If you don't have the patience or time to sit read and contemplate due to distractions then I would suggest the Top Ten of Shakespeare's sonnets to read would be:
10. Sonnet 104 - "To me, fair friend, you never can be old" 
9. Sonnet 30 - "When to the sessions of sweet silent thought"
8. Sonnet 33 - "Full many a glorious morning have I seen"
7. Sonnet 73 - "That time of year thou mayst in me behold"
6. Sonnet 129 - "The expense of spirit in a waste of shame"
5. Sonnet 130 - "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun" 
4. Sonnet 1 - "From fairest creatures we desire increase"
3. Sonnet 29 - "When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes"
2. Sonnet 116 - "Let me not to the marriage of true minds"
1. Sonnet 18 - "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day"

The central questions which surround Shakespeare's sonnets for many people are:

·      Are Shakespeare’s sonnets autobiographical?

·      Are they poetical exercises which deal with imagined people, circumstances and experiences?

·      Who is the Fair Youth in the sonnets?

·      Who is the Dark Lady in the sonnets?

·      Who is the Rival Poet in the sonnets?

Poets over the years have certainly thought that Shakespeare’s sonnets are autobiographical. Wordsworth said that the sonnets “…express Shakespeare’s own feelings in his own person…” and even in one of Wordsworth's own sonnets, he poetically claims that he like Shakespeare was revealing himself because “…with this same key Shakespeare unlocked his heart…” People over the years have wanted so much to know more about Shakespeare that the sonnets have, for many, become an unofficial autobiography which seems to reveal Shakespeare's inner and outer life through an intimate love life that the sonnets could reveal to go something like this:

Shakespeare, under the commission of some rich figurehead urges a young man, “…the only begetter of these ensuring sonnets”, to marry and have children to pass on his good looks to another generation. Many believe the young man to be the Henry Wriothesley (Earl of Southhampton) or William Herbert (Earl of Pembroke). Then the autobiographical approach would see Shakespeare falling in love with the young man himself. This leads him onto revealing a host of emotions and contemplations on love, loneliness, mortality, immortality through writing, the transience of life and the fear of death. Then the sonnets reveal jealousy of another poet who the young man seems to prefer, at least as a poet. The rival poet could be seen to be Christopher Marlowe, George Chapman, John Davies or even Francis Davison. Then Shakespeare seems to become sexually involved with the Dark Lady and he gets involved in a love triangle which involves him, the Young Man and the Dark Lady where he is forced to contemplate the difference between the spiritual love he feels for the “fair youth” and the sexual love he feels for the “dark lady”. The Dark Lady is suitably mysterious but speculation has identified her as everyone from the London prostitute of African descent known as Lucy Negro or Black Luce to Mary Fitton to Emilia Lanier to Queen Elizabeth II herself. Back to the love triangle. Shakespeare then, in this narrative, blames The Dark Lady’ for the love triangle and shifting of affections and forgives the Young Man.

I tend to see ‘The Sonnets’ as ultimately an amazing sequence of narrative fiction, an exercise in poetic gymnastics which also seeks to play with (and even at points mock) the sonnet form itself. I believe that the intimacy of the tone of the sonnets plays with the reader to make them think that the poems give them an insight into the inner would of the poet (or the speaker). Obviously, Shakespeare uses much as his own voice and his own experiences to infuse authenticity into ‘The Sonnets’ but I believe the ultimate beauty of ‘The Sonnets’ lies in their ability to paint a clear and focused landscape of the inner world of an emotional life, while letting the reader transport these emotions and feelings wherever they like from connections to their own life, to judgments about the universal nature of these feelings to even a imaginary biography of a great playwright and poet who died almost 400 years ago about whom very little is known. 

If you want to see short films based on the sonnets, try The Sonnet Project which has short films based around many of the sonnets from the USA and other countries. The link is here:

https://nysx.org/programs-2/sonnet-project/

During the COVID 19 virus outbreak, the British Actor Patrick Stewart posted a reading of Shakespearean sonnet every day during his isolation and lockdown. I have attached a link to to his readings for many of the early sonnets. 

‘Sonnets 1-17’

I wanted to give some indication about how to write about Shakespeare’s sonnets so some of this will seem like a commentary and some will focus on individual bits.  In Sonnets 1-17, the poet or speaker, addresses The Fair Youth and tries to persuade him to have children so that his beauty will live on long after he dies.

From fairest creatures we desire increase,

That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,

But as the riper should by time decease,

His tender heir might bear his memory:

But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,

Feed’st thy light’st flame with self-substantial fuel,

Making a famine where abundance lies,

Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.

Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament

And only herald to the gaudy spring,

Within thine own bud buriest thy content

And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding.

Pity the world, or else this glutton be,

To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=198993371551947
In the first sonnet, the poet seems to be addressing a young man (later identified as the Fair Youth) advocating that he should have children to preserve and pass on his beauty. The first quatrain states the poet’s assertion that ‘we’ as humans want the most beautiful people in the world to procreate and have children so that the bud of beauty “might never die” and so that when “the riper”, the parent (inferred that this is the father) eventually dies, the young child will be a living reminder of the beauty evident in the poet’s young ‘fair’ male friend. The use of “fairest” in line 1 gives a sense of both beauty and ‘fair’ in terms of judgment. The ironic use of the phrase “we desire increase” at the end of line 1 establishes early (and perhaps foreshadows) a relationship between “desire” (in the erotic sense) and ”increase” (with its sexual overtones). Increase also suggests immortality and here the poet is also suggesting the “increase” or immortality which his own words and verse might give to the youth. The poet’s use in line 2 of the phrase “beauty’s rose” give an image of beauty but also through the poet’s choice of a rose infers the metaphorical symbol of a rose as beauty while carrying with it the inference that a rose also has thorns. This reinforces the strength of the poet advocating that as the “ripeness” of the youth decreases that he should produce a young child or “tender heir”.

In the second quatrain, the tone changes slightly and the poet directly addresses the youth and accuses him of vanity and being “contracted” to his own “bright eyes”. The poet’s accusation of vanity towards his young male friend is further reinforced by the use in line 6 of the metaphor of a flame as the poet accuses the youth of feeding “thy light’s flame” with “self-substantial fuel” inferring that this narcissism will in fact allow the youth make his own beauty burn out. Line 7 takes this argument further when the poet accuses the youth of starving the world of his beauty instead of making his beauty abundant in the world. Line 8 tells the youth that he is his own worst enemy making himself into his own “cruel” “foe”.

In the third quatrain, the poet praises the youth as the “world’s fresh ornament” who is the only person as beautiful as the spring itself. The poet then moves back to an accusatory tone and he accuses the youth of burying his “content” (which is suggestive of both literal procreation and poetic creation) in his own “bud” (inferring both the youth’s potential and his sexuality) so that the youth “mak’st waste in niggarding”. The use of the word “niggardling” suggests that the youth is like an old selfish miserly man in keeping his beauty to himself.

The final rhyming couplet of Sonnet 1, sees the poet asking the youth to take pity on the world or else be prepared to be considered a “glutton” consuming himself and his own beauty through him consuming or eating what the poet believes the world deserves – the youth's beauty. The final line of the sonnet ironically uses the word “grave” to both warn the youth that if he continues on this course he will take his beauty to the grave while also using inferring the word "grave" to suggest the seriousness of the loss the world would suffer if the youth does not procreate and chooses to take his beauty to his death.

Sonnet 2 continues the same address to the young man and suggests that if the young man does grow old at least if he has a child he would “… be new when thou art old…”
https://twitter.com/sirpatstew/status/1242205662194601985?lang=en

The poet’s assaults the young man in Sonnet 3 when he asks the youth to look in the mirror and admit that it is time for him to have a child and even warns him that if he does not have a child that he will “Die single and thine image dies with thee.” 
https://twitter.com/sirpatstew/status/1242573244860948481?lang=en

Sonnet 4 continues in the same fashion but uses the metaphor of money to  suggest that the youth should invest in himself so that his beauty can be used and increase in its investment. Perhaps this is suggesting that the youth is rich or good with monetary investments. The youth’s beauty is then compared more to flowers and the allegory of making perfume from flowers as a way of preserving beauty is used to further encourage the youth to have children to preserve his beauty before old age (“winter”) comes. 
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1452793221777145


The poet’s threat of death to the youth furthers in Sonnet 6 when the poet threatens that without children “death’s conquest” will “make worms thine heir”. 
https://twitter.com/sirpatstew/status/1243292618550915072?lang=en

The imagery of the sun starts to rise and come in with Sonnet 7 when the poet compares the beauty of the youth with the sun that “like feeble age” eventually “reeleth from the day” and suggests that unless he is able to “get a son” while the sun of the youth shines bright, he will die alone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLJ1zPj1440

Sonnet 8 uses music as imagery for the happy bond between father, mother and child and suggests that if the youth does not have a child the only tune or song lyric he will hear will be “Thou single wilt prove none.” 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqiyIqPEkds

The poet in Sonnet 9 suggests that the youth is selfish and incapable of love and has “No love toward others in that bosom sits…” Sonnet 9 is heard read here by Sir John Gielgud. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnlca_W6AwI

The poet’s tactics change in Sonnet 10 when he tries to suggests that if the youth will not have a child for himself that he should do it for love of the poet - “Make thee another self for love of me (the poet)…” 
https://twitter.com/sirpatstew/status/1244356954283298816?lang=en

The poet then moves on in Sonnet 11 evoking Nature itself as imploring the youth by “carving thee for her seal” and nature herself is seen to be pleading that the youth should have children and make copies of himself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTWeH2WFbvM

Sonnet 12 is less direct in its approach towards the young man and contemplates how time is ticking away and in nature “sweets and beauties do themselves forsake”. The sense in the end of this sonnet is that Time is a destructive force that can only be defended against by breeding. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t65ind8zJiw

Sonnet 13 uses Shakespeare’s favourite and most used word “sweet” (this is his most used word in the plays as well as the sonnets) three times and ends with a urged reminder “You had a father: let your son say so.” 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gduSt3LINU

Then in Sonnet 14, the poet says that he can’t predict what is in the stars but what he does predict is that the young man’s “…end is truth’s and beauty’s doom and date.” 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BI__UHGgMM

The suggestion in Sonnet 15 is that the poet out of love for the young man wages a war against time which steals from the youth but which the poet is able to in his poetry “engraft you new”. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPHM8RY91OI

Sonnet 16 says that the youth would preserve his own self and image and “live yourself in the eyes of men” if he had a child.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulm10jYKz8k

Sonnet 17 ends the sequence which directly deals with the young man and says that no-one in the future will believe the beauty of the young man as preserved in the poet’s verse and that people will think that the poet was lying or exaggerating but that if the youth himself had a child then the youth’s beauty “should live twice”:

Sonnet 17

“Who will believe my verse in time to come,


If it were filled with your most high deserts?
T

hough yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb


Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts.


If I could write the beauty of your eyes,


And in fresh numbers number all your graces,


The age to come would say 'This poet lies;


Such heavenly touches ne'er touched earthly faces.'


So should my papers, yellowed with their age,


Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue,


And your true rights be termed a poet's rage


And stretched metre of an antique song:


But were some child of yours alive that time,


You should live twice, in it, and in my rhyme.”

Here is Patrick Stewart reading Sonnet 17 on the Graham Norton show in lockdown from his home:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3YGPtwJo8k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7Z4YbynhuI