t imitations of the vogue or fashion of that time. Those two
Sonnets I leave out of this discussion, and would have what may be
here said, understood as applying only to the one hundred and
fifty-two remaining.

These one hundred and fifty-two Sonnets I will now insist have a
common theme. Most of them may be placed in groups which seem to be
connected and somewhat interdependent. Those groups may perhaps, in
some cases, be placed in different orders, without seriously affecting
the whole. To that extent they are disconnected. But in whatever order
those groups are placed, through them runs the same theme--the
relations of the poet to his friend or patron, and to his mistress,
the mistress of his carnal love, who is introduced only because the
poet fears that she has transferred her affections or favors to his
friend, wounding and wronging him in his love or desire for each.

It is easy to pick out many Sonnets which may be read as disconnected
and independent poetry. But very many more verses could be selected
from _In Memoriam_ that can be read independently of the remainder of
that poem. And there are none of the Sonnets, however they may read
standing alone, that do not fit the mode and movement of those with
which they stand connected. There is, I submit, no more reason for
sundering Sonnets of that class from the others, than there is for
taking the soliloquy of Hamlet from the play that bears his name.

This statement of the theme and the connected character of the Sonnets
is not essential to the views I shall present. Nevertheless, if it is
accepted, if we are able to agree that they all are relevant and
apposite to a common theme, it strengthens the proposition that we
should seek for them a literal meaning and should reject any
construction which would make any of their description or movement
incongruous to any other part. Of course we shall expect to find in
them the enlargement or exaggeration of poetic license. But so doing
we must recall the characteristics of their great author, who with all
exaggeration preserves harmony and symmetry of parts, and harmony and
correspondence in all settings and surroundings. With such views of
what is fair and helpful in interpretation, I propose to proceed to a
closer view of the first one hundred and fifty-two of what are known
as the Sonnets of Shakespeare.

Footnotes:

[1] Brandes's _William Shakespeare, a Critical Study_. Temple edition
of Shakespeare, intro