Shakespeare's Sonnets: 1

One of the most controversial writers of all time is William Shakespeare. Did he write those plays or was it someone else? Who were those Sonnets about? Why don’t we know more about his background? Was he Catholic or Protestant? Scholars have been fighting for a few centuries over these and myriad other questions about the Bard of Avon.

Certainly the plays and sonnets were written by the same person, owing to lines and phrases showing up in both places. Although some people still argue against him, Shakespeare is considered by most scholars to have written all this beautiful poetry.

And so today we begin a survey of the 154 Sonnets. They could have been written in the last decade of the 16th century, or they could have been written all through Shakespeare’s career. Nevertheless, they were gathered and published in 1609, with or without the author’s permission. We’ll look at them one at a time. Don’t look for analysis on the meaning; greater minds than your humble servant can’t agree on what they mean. Just enjoy the poetry and ponder the mysteries of the depth of the human person.

Sonnet I

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,

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.

Just one note in case there is any misunderstanding: “niggarding” means being miserly.