Shakespeare's Sonnets (1923) Yale/Appendix A
APPENDIX A
History of the Sonnets
The first mention of Shakespeare's sonnets occurs in a little book by Francis Meres entitled Palladis Tamia, Wit's Treasury, published in 1598: 'the sweet, witty soul of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare, witness his Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece, his sugared sonnets among his private friends.' 'Among his private friends' means not only that the sonnets were unpublished, but that they were composed for persons with whom he was in intimate relations. The obscurity of many of these poems certainly arises from the fact that they were written for friendly eyes; and accordingly they contain many allusions to persons and events which would be plain enough to Shakespeare's circle, but which would mean little or nothing to outsiders, even in the poet's day.
In The Passionate Pilgrim, 1599, were published the first two of Shakespeare's sonnets to appear in print. They were Nos. 138 and 144. Their text differs in several lines from that printed in the first edition of the whole sonnet collection. This first edition, which the present volume follows, was a quarto published by Thomas Thorpe in 1609. It contains a large number of obvious mistakes that ruin the sense; in several cases sonnets that plainly should follow each other are separated; and it is impossible to believe that Shakespeare prepared the text for publication.
This first quarto made no such impression as did Sidney's posthumous sonnet sequence, Astrophel and Stella, published in 1591, and it was not until 1640 that a second edition of Shakespeare's sonnets appeared. This was published by John Benson under the title 'Poems written by Wil. Shake-speare, Gent.'; yet it contained, as well, poems by Marlowe, Raleigh, Ben Jonson, Carew, Herrick, Milton, and others. The sonnets were not printed in the order in which they appeared in the quarto of 1609. In many cases they were run together as one continuous poem; and there were added to them, singly or in groups, seventy-four titles, some fairly appropriate, others quite unfitting, and nearly all commonplace. Seven sonnets, including No. 18, 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day,' and the poem in couplets, No. 126, are omitted from this edition. Plainly it is much inferior to the quarto of 1609. In 1710 both the first and second editions were reprinted. Two editions in a century indicate a lack of interest in the sonnets, especially when their fate is contrasted with the numerous editions and great popularity of many of the plays.
There is further evidence in the manner in which the first editors of Shakespeare neglected these poems. To cite Lee, 'Neither Nicholas Rowe, nor Pope, nor Theobald, nor Hanmer, nor Warburton, nor Capell, nor Dr. Johnson included them in their respective collections of Shakespeare's plays. None of these editors, save Capell, showed any signs of acquaintance with them.' The first critical edition of the sonnets was Malone's, 1780, for which George Steevens supplied some material; and it is indicative of the general attitude towards the sonnets that Steevens himself, in 1793, wrote that 'The strongest act of Parliament that could be framed would fail to compel readers into their service.'
With the rise of the Romantic School, the sonnets found readers, students, and imitators. Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Keats directed attention to them and on the Continent, where also they had suffered neglect, they became a subject of study and criticism. At the present moment, no part of Shakespeare's work arouses more interest or a greater critical discussion, a discussion which unfortunately has arrived at no sure conclusions.