Edward De Vere: Inventor of the Shakespearean Sonnet?
Brighton, MA
In 1609, Shake-Speare’s Sonnets were published.
The collection continues to stand as one of the most beautiful works in the English language. An example is given below:
2
When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,
Thy youth’s proud livery, so gazed on now,
Will be a tattered weed of small worth held.
Then being asked where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,
To say within thine own deep-sunken eyes
Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.
How musch more praise deserved thy beauty’s use
If thou couldst answer ‘This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count and make my old excues,’
Proving his beauty by succession thine.
This were to be new made when thou art old,
And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold.
Where did this form of writing come from? In all 154 examples, the author included fourteen lines of ten syllables each. These lines were divided into three quatrains and a couplet. The rhyme scheme, through all of them, was abab cdcd efef and finally gg. Did the author pull this format out of the air?
In the Penguin Classics edition of The Sonnets and A Lover’s Complaint, the following was stated in the introduction,
Shakespeare is certainly aware of-indeed he exploits-sonneteering conventions, and literary precursors like Sidney and Daniel intermittently mark his work
In Sonnets of this Century, William Sharp stated that Shakespeare was copying a form
“made thoroughly for his use by Daniel and Drayton.”
Drayton published his sonnets in 1593, sixteen years prior to Shakespeare. An example is seen below:
Into these loves, who but for passion looks,
At this first sight here let him lay them by
And seek elsewhere in turning other books,
Which better may his labour satisfy.
No far-fetch’d sigh shall ever wound my breast;
Love from mine eye a tear shall never wring;
Nor in “Ah me’s!” my whining sonnets drest:
A libertine, fantasticly I sing.
My verse is the true image of my mind,
Ever in motion, still desiring change;
And as thus to variety inclin’d,
So in all humours sportively I range:
My Muse is rightly of the English strain,
That cannot long one fashion entertain.
Daniel published his sonnets in 1592, seventeen years before
Shake-Speare’s. An example is seen below:
39
When winter snows upon thy sable hairs,
And frost of age hath nipt thy beauties near;
When dark shall seem thy day that never clears,
And all lies withered that was held so dear:
Then take this picture which I here present thee,
Limned with a pencil that’s not all unworthy:
Here see the gifts that God and Nature lent thee;
Here read thyself, and what I suffer’d for thee.
This may remain thy lasting monument,
Which happily posterity may cherish;
These colours with thy fading are not spent,
These may remain, when thou and I shall perish.
If they remain, then thou shalt live thereby:
They will remain, and so thou canst not die.
In Shakespeare Identified, Thomas Looney had the following to say:
Now, as Daniel was twelve years, and Drayton thirteen years younger than Edward de Vere, and as the last named was publishing poetry at a relatively early age, it is clear that his early lyrics come before either of these two other men.
Seeing, then, that we have a sonnet of Edward De Vere’s which is obviously an early production, and that it is in what we now call the Shakespearean form, we are entitled to claim, on the above authority, that the actual founder of the Shakespearean sonnet was Edward De Vere
Looney then went on to include the one sonnet published under the name Edward De Vere:
“LOVE THY CHOICE”
Who taught thee first to sigh, alas! my heart?
Who taughty thy tongue the woeful words of plaint?
Whoe filled your eyes with tears of bitter smart?
Who gave thee grief and made thy joys to faint?
Who firts did paint with colours pale thy face?
Who first did brea thy sleeps of quiet rest?
Above the rest in court who gave thee grace?
Who made thee strive in honour to be best?
In constant truth to bide so firm and sure,
To scorn the world regarding but thy friends?
With patient mind each passion to endure,
If one desire to settle to the end?
Love then thy choice wherein such choice thou bind
As nought but death my ever change thy mind.
Conclusion
The sonnet form utilized by De Vere constitutes another piece of circumstantial evidence in The Oxfordian Theory of Shakespeare Authorship. What do professional Shakespeare scholars make of the coincidence? Most are silent as the grave.
