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's flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thy self 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, mak'st waste in niggarding.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.
Sonnet 1 is the first in a series of 154 sonnets written by William Shakespeare and published in 1609 [1] . Sonnets are published without authorization by the author, however, the order of their location has not changed since then, and the sonnet cycle always starts with this sonnet [2] . An analysis of sonnets in this order allows you to discover the story of a love triangle, which serves as the subtext of the cycle.
Sonnet 1 is part of the Fair Youth sonnets, in which the author addresses an unnamed young man (lover), while later sonnets refer to the Dark Lady [3]
The identity of a beloved friend remains a mystery, but most researchers agree that there are two most likely candidates for whom sonnets are dedicated: Henry Riesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton or William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke [4] .
Notes
- ↑ Cheney, Patrick. The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare's Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007. Print, pg. 127.
- ↑ Cheney, Patrick. The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare's Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007. Print, pg. 127.
- ↑ Cheney, Patrick. The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare's Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007. Print, pg. 128.
- ↑ Crosman, Robert. "Making Love out of Nothing at All: The Issue of Story in Shakespeare's Procreation Sonnets." Shakespeare Quarterly 41.4 (1990): 470-488. Folger Shakespeare Library in association with George Washington University. Web, pg. 477.
Literature
- Alden, Raymond. The Sonnets of Shakespeare, with Variorum Reading and Commentary . Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1916.
- Baldwin, T. W. On the Literary Genetics of Shakspeare's Sonnets . Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1950.
- Booth, Stephen . Shakespeare's Sonnets . New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977.
- Dowden, Edward . Shakespeare's Sonnets . London, 1881.
- Hubler, Edwin. The Sense of Shakespeare's Sonnets . Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952.