The Poems

Shakespeare's earliest works are the long poems Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. The first work is a fashionably erotic account of the love story of Venus and Adonis. The second is a rather more rhetorical poem, narrating the story of Tarquin and Lucrece, and examining the conflict between lust and conscience.

The cycle of 154 Sonnets (thought to be written in the 1590s. although unpublished until 1609) is probably the most enigmatic of all his works and continue to excite speculation to this day. Apparently addressed partly to a fair young man and partly to a mysterious dark lady, they deal with themes of love and the passage of time and friendship. Compared with most of the sonnets of the day, they are strikingly original and go beyond the highly wrought surface but rather conventional content of Sidney or Spenser's sonnets. As ever, the temptation to try to read something of Shakespeare's own private life into the sonnets is strong, but, in the end, frustrating, since Shakespeare, the man, eludes us always.

The sources of this chronology given below are records of performances, or clues found in the text of the (unauthorized) editions of the plays issued during Shakespeare's lifetime.

The Sonnets

Shakespeare wrote a cycle of 154 sonnets early in his career, which were published in 1609. These poems have excited great controversy because of the mysterious figures of an attractive young man and a dark lady who appear in them. Many authors have speculated on the significance that these poems may have had in Shakespeare's personal life; they have been linked, on the basis of rather tenuous clues, to his patron, the Earl of Southampton, or his fellow-actor, Richard Burbage, but there is little concrete evidence. As always, Shakespeare's private life eludes us and we must be satisfied with the poems alone, which contain many intriguing views of love.

Refer back to the sonnet by Sidney (text 16). Can you remember the formal characteristics of this type of poem? See if you can find any differences in Shakespeare's use of the form.

5. The 18-th century

From Classical to Romantic

Within the arbitrary confines of eighteenth century-society we witness not only the culmination of a neo­classical literature, which had its roots in post-Restoration England, but also the challenges of a new Romanticism which, having raised its banner around the middle of the century, was to sweep away much before it in the wake of the French Revolution. It is therefore a variegated age and, as such, difficult to describe exhaustively. Before considering each genre in detail, we may make a few general observations.

The earlier part of the century was a golden age of prose. It was, however, a different kind of prose from that of the past: in line with the general reaction against the intricacies, fineries and rhetorical extravagances of late European Renaissance literature, the new prose was characterized by a certain restraint. It was simpler, clearer and more precise than that wich had gone before. Whereas the Metaphysicals and Puritans had often tended towards verbal opaqueness and extravagant verbal games or unlikely associations, the new writers of both prose and poetry were more concerned with poise, balance, clarity and coherence. This was in part due to the rationalist ten­dencies of an age in which developments in the fields of experimental science and rationalist philosophies were leading to the predominance of a more reasoned and empirical way of interpreting reality. It was also a reflection of the desire for peace and order in a society emerging from a period of revolution and civil war. In the field of poetry in particular, it can come as no surprise that the models turned to were those of the golden 'Augustan' age in Rome: Ovid, Horace, Virgil and Tibullus.