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A Shakespeare Sonnet Group
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
In Thorpe's 1609 Quarto there are signs of a “lost” Shakespeare poem in eleven sonnet stanzas, six still together (63–68) and five displaced (19, 21, 100–101, 105). An attempt to restore this poem ends, of course, in rearranging the Sonnets, a practice which has earned its questionable reputation. True, the “original” sonnet order itself is questionable, and modest revision of it, such as Tucker Brooke's, can be plausible. But we should not forget the free-ranging cryptographers whose persistent tampering with Thorpe's text has led to a defensive presumption in its favor. Whether my own efforts lessen this presumption, or simply justify it, is not for me to say. I have tried, however, to introduce some rather stiff standards for rearrangement which are hardly designed to stir up new activity. And so long as mischief does not threaten, perhaps we can afford to be a little more realistic about the 1609 edition, a text without authority for sequence except where the sonnet order clearly justifies itself. Certainly this text is not made authentic by notorious failure to improve it; Hyder Rollins, who did not suffer rearrangers gladly, was very clear on that point (Variorum edition, ii, 83).
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1960
References
1 Shakespeare's Sonnets (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1936).
2 The remainder (127–154) are not related to our problem; in that group none of the seven sonnets of exclusive third person reference designates Shakespeare's friend, except 144 which mentions both the friend and the dark woman. The other six (127, 130, 138, 145, 153, 154) refer to a woman alone. It will thus be obvious from later discussion that none of these sonnets can be involved in the proposed regrouping.
3 Aside from 63–68, these are 19, 21, 100–101, 105. Sonnets 5 (possibly) and 33 appear to belong in this class, but they are quite unlike the rest because they are syntactically paired with sonnets ending in second person address. Each pair thus resembles the unusual 47 in which third person reference leads to second person address within a single sonnet. In seven, or possibly eight, sonnets the addressee is not mentioned at all (cf. Brooke, pages 32–33): 25, 56, 94, 116, 119, 123, 124, and perhaps 121 unless “our feeling” constitutes mention. (In 25 the friend's “favor” or regard appears to be designated; in 56 and 124 “love” refers not to the object of love but to the emotion itself.) Distinction is thus to be made between sonnets which designate the friend in the second person, those which mention him only in the third person, and those which do not mention him in either manner.
4 Noted by Dowden as an incidental fact in discussing the “you”-“thou” question (edition of 1881, pages xlvi–xlvii).
5 In Quarto numbering: 13, 19, 21, 22, 40, 47, 72, 76, 79, 89,100–101,105,107. (I have here restored to standard usage any renumbering by Brooke.)
6 To Brooke's list in note 5 add 82 and 99; withdraw from it 107 in which “my love” appears to be Shakespeare's emotion, not the object of it.
7 A fair number of sonnets allude to the muse; none, save 100–101, invokes the muse.
8 Perhaps because of its remarkable relevance as a conclusion to the third person—“my love” group, I assume too much in reading 10S as a “summation.” It might serve as the formal introduction to a series. If intended as such, however, it is still dubiously placed in Thorpe's Quarto. Had 105 immediately preceded 108, and had the theme of 108 persisted, the continuity 105 suggests would have been present. Two sonnets, however, intervene: 106 is not inapposite, but 107 itself appears to introduce a group. As for 109 fi., the innocent exuberance of 105 is at odds with the “guilty return” theme of that clearly defined series. In any event, nothing in 106 ft. requires linkage with 105, and the nature of 107 and of 109 fi. appears to deny it.'
9 Although no explanation need be given for the 1609 arrangement of 100–105, I offer a guess similar to the one concerning 17–21. The 1609 compiler perhaps noted in 100–101 an invocation of the Muse plus something about silence being the best tribute to an indescribable object; 102 seemed to fit this, as did 103 which, moreover, mentioned the Muse; and so on, oblivious (as in 17–21) of the nonsense which resulted. This might explain the essence of Thorpe's 100–105, which is pointlessness overlain with superficial unity.
10 Consolidation of these sonnets may be questioned by finding 100–101 related not necessarily to 102 ff. but to 97–99. Evidence for this traditional connection is the absent, mute poet of 97–99 and the forgetful, mute muse of 100–101, to which I may add the appearance of “my love” in 99.3 as possibly anticipating the usage in 100–101. I find the evidence for this linkage much less compelling than the internal evidence of unity in 97–104 after 100 and 101 are removed. In any event, although the 97–101 grouping would invalidate the “by-product,” it would not affect the eleven sonnet group I propose. It could simply mean that the series of eleven, beginning with 100–101, was meant to proceed rather loosely from another series, 97–99.
11 Brooke (page 41) believed that this justified the insertion of 59–60 after 65.
12 On the Literary Genetics of Shakespeare's Poems and Sonnets (Urbana, i11., 1950).
13 Pp. 287–288; see also pages listed in the index references to individual sonnets.
14 P. 274, with preceding pages.
15 5 and 33, the third person sonnets syntactically paired with second person sonnets (see note 3). Note also that the extremely oblique reference in 5 (“the lovely gaze”) sets it apart from the sonnets of our series.
16 Third person reference running through eleven sonnets does not require uniformity in the epithet of reference, nor does the epithet require the third person. Within the third person category itself, however, there is something like a redundancy affecting but three of the eleven sonnets. 19 and 100–101 naturally involve third person mention of the friend, since they are addressed to Time and the Muse respectively. But this in no way affects the “my love” epithet or any of the other six factors in the problem.
17 To avoid unnecessary controversy I have pointed to highly questionable placing rather than to certain disarrangement.
18 Such explanation is not needed, of course, where a connection with other sonnets still allows the group of eleven to remain intact (see end of note 10). For example: Francis Berry, in a new treatment of the old “thou-you” question (Essays in Criticism, April 1958, 138–146), finds that sonnets 63–68 provide a subtly meaningful shift to the third person after previous levels of second person usage. Perhaps an interpretation such as Mr. Berry's is still possible with 63–68 expanded to an eleven sonnet series. If it is not, some explanation of the cumulative factors affecting the series might be in order—an explanation showing how the eleven sonnets could be unrelated under the circumstances. I do not imply, of course, that such an explanation is impossible, or that Mr. Berry should have anticipated the problem.