'Oscar Wilde & Shakespeare's Sonnets' - Sonnets 1 – 32

 

In this blog I will go through Shakespeare’s Sonnets in numerical order, to see what Wilde has to say about each one of them in ‘The Portrait of Mr. W.H.’

 

The range of Sonnets Sonnets 1 – 32 are often characterised as the ‘marriage’ or ‘procreation’ sonnets.

 Early in his study, Wilde takes this literal view but then applies it to the Dramatic Arts, seeing their meaning as: ‘Shakespeare invites Willie Hughes to go upon the stage as an actor.’ The actor’s art gives rise to the creation of dramatic roles and this is akin to procreation: Willie Hughes’ roles become his children and Shakespeare, fascinated by his youth and beauty, writes his great female roles for him: they are the offspring of Shakespeare and Willie Hughes together. Wilde states his evidence (on Folio 23) from sonnets such as Sonnet 18 which concludes:

         Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

 And Wilde suggest this means:

 …the expression “eternal lines” clearly alludes to one of his plays that he was sending him at the time, just as the concluding couplet points to his confidence in the probability of his plays being always acted.

Wilde suggest that ‘this’ in the final line is not the Sonnets but Shakespeare’s plays and their female roles: ‘from Rosalind to Juliet, and from Beatrice to Ophelia.’

 

'Oscar Wilde & Shakespeare's Sonnets' is available at: https://amzn.eu/d/0eJNYAeJ