Sonnets Tracklist
In May of 1609, Thomas Thorpe walked down Ave Maria Lane and registered his publication of SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS at the London Stationer’s Register. The quarto held 154 sonnets, all attributed to a popular playwright named William Shakespeare.
The sonnets are usually divided into three principal sections: first, a sequence of 126 sonnets probably addressed to a male figure, commonly referred to as the “fair youth.” The second, smaller section, known as the “dark lady” sonnets, are twenty six poems likely addressed to a woman. The last two sonnets are anacreontic sonnets involving Cupid, the Greek and Roman god of love. Versions of two of the poems (138 and 144) were published previously as the first and second poems in the 1599 Passionate Pilgrim.
The vast majority of the sonnets are written in iambic pentameter and consist of three quatrains and a rhyming couplet, featuring a rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg. There are three sonnets which differ from this: 99 (which has one extra line), 126 (twelve lines of rhyming couplets), and 145 (which is written in iambic tetrameter).
The sonnets have inspired intense debate and speculation about Shakespeare’s biography, especially regarding the identities of the fair youth and dark lady, and of Shakespeare’s own sexual orientation.
