Shakespeare's Sonnets (review)

This little book is a welcome supplement to sonnet scholarship of the last thirty years. Geared mainly to students and readers new to serious study of the sonnets, the authors state in their preface a desire to provide "an introduction, overview, and guide" to the understanding and enjoyment of these poems (xiii). Part I (chapters 1–8) takes up such matters as the sonnets' early publication, the emergence in England of the sonnet form, the structure of Shakespeare's sonnets, their artistry, and their thematic concerns, as well as the relationship between the sonnets and the plays and between "A Lover's Complaint" and the sonnets. Part 2 (chapters 9–12) examines the "afterlife" of the sonnets. Along the way, Edmondson and Wells attempt "to dispel the myths and interrogate assumptions that stand in the way of an open response to the poems" (xiii).

The best way to dispel the myths, of course, is to state clearly what is and is not known about the sonnets. This the authors do throughout. "No one knows for certain when Shakespeare wrote the poems, in what order he wrote them, . . . whether Shakespeare wanted them to be published, or to whom—if indeed to any specific persons—they relate and are addressed" (xiii). Most of what has been written over the last two centuries, of course, has been exactly this sort of biographical speculation by "scholars with a taste for proving the unprovable" (26). The same sort of judicious caution guides the authors' condensation of what is known of the narrative the sonnets suggest: "The poet loves one or more young men, and/or women, and his love is to some degree reciprocated. The poet also loves a 'black' woman. Another poet also loves the person or persons who respond to his praise. One or more women has an affair with one or more young men which the poet deeply resents. There is no resolution to the situation" (46). Such terse skepticism is reminiscent of Stephen Booth's appendix to his 1977 edition of the poems, "Facts and Theories about Shakespeare's Sonnets."¹ Unlike Booth, however, the authors are open to the possibility that the poems arise from Shakespeare's experience. At the very least, they contend, Shakespeare

understood the feelings of those who succeed in love, and those who fail; that he understood the pain of physical separation from the beloved and emotional estrangement; that he could enter into the imaginations of men and women; and that he knew what it was to be profoundly, even self-destructively introspective. The Sonnets do not necessarily have to entertain, advise, or inform other readers, but may rather show the poet struggling to understand himself. In this sense they may be thought of as an emotional autobiography.

(27)

This same tendency—to be clear about what is not and cannot be known and yet open to the rich possibilities of these poems—can be found in the discussion of the "concerns" of the sonnets, especially their frank expressions of sexuality in a variety of forms. There is no shying away here from the homoerotic dimension of many sonnets, though there is also ample recognition that concepts like homosexuality, bisexuality, and heterosexuality did not exist in the seventeenth century. Noting that criticism has become more receptive to the sonnets' homoerotic undertones since the "decriminalization of homosexual acts . . . in Great Britain in 1967" (144), the authors favor openness to a variety of interpretations rather than dogmatic assertion. In general, they tend to discourage an emphasis on the misogyny that some critics of these poems have discerned. More explanation of their reasons for this stance is needed to be persuasive.

The discussion of the form and artistry of Shakespeare's sonnets (chapters 4 and 5) will be especially helpful for new readers. There are useful charts on "Sexing the Sonnets," that is, indicating how many suggest a male or female addressee, and how many could be addressed to someone of either...