Shakespeare’s sequence of 154 sonnets should be read together because they interlock and create a narrative. The story revolves around the poet’s relationship with his two muses – a young man with whom he is infatuated, and then later, a “dark” woman.
The muses are used to break down the sonnets into three sequences, as follows:
The Fair Youth Sonnets (Sonnets 1 – 126)
The first 126 sonnets are addressed to a young man and reveal a deep, loving friendship. The speaker encourages the friend to procreate so that his youthful beauty can be carried on through his children. The speaker also believes that the man’s beauty can be preserved in his poetry, as the final couplet of Sonnet 17 reveals:
But were some child of yours alive that time, [in the future]
You should live twice: in it, and in my rhyme.
Some believe that the intimacy of the relationship between the speaker and the young man is evidence of Shakespeare’s homosexuality. However, this is probably a very modern reading of a classical text. There was no public reaction to the relationship when the sonnets were first published by Thomas Thorpe in 1609, suggesting that the expression of a deep friendship through such language was perfectly acceptable at the time. It was perhaps more shocking to the Victorian sensibility.
The Dark Lady Sonnets (Sonnets 127 – 152)
In sonnet 127, the dark lady enters the narrative and instantly becomes the object of the poet’s desire. The speaker introduces the woman by explaining that her beauty is unconventional:
In the old age black was not counted fair,
Or if it were, it bore not beauty’s name;
… Therefore my mistress’ eyes are raven black … not born fair, no beauty lack.
From the poet’s perspective, he is treated badly by the dark lady. She is a temptress described in sonnet 114 as “my female evil” and “my bad angel” which ultimately causes anguish for the poet. She seems to be linked to the young man in some way and some sonnets suggest that she is having a passionate affair with him.
As the poet’s frustrations build, he begins to use the word “black” to describe her evil rather than her beauty.
For example, the poet sees the dark lady with another man later on in the sequence and his jealousy boils to the surface. Notice how the word “black” is used with negative connotations in sonnet 131:
One on another’s neck do witness bear
Thy black is fairest in my judgement’s place.
In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,
And thence this slander, as I think, proceeds.
The Greek Sonnets (Sonnets 153 and 154)
The final two sonnets are very different and draw upon the Roman myth of Cupid, to whom the poet has already compared his muses.
