SOURCE: "The Friend and the Poet," in An Introduction to the Sonnets of Shakespeare for the Use of Historians and Others, Cambridge University Press, 1964, pp. 31-44.

In the following excerpt, Wilson examines the sonnets which describe the love that the "Poet, " or Shakespeare, feels for his young male "Friend. " After asserting that the relationship between the two men was not homosexual, Wilson speculates about the Friend's social rank and his personality, and suggests that when a poet as great as Shakespeare was settles his affections on one so apparently "commonplace " and uncomprehending as was his Friend, the consecjuencescan be "tragic. "

The Nature of the Friendship and the Character of the Friend

We can now leave Thomas Thorpe for the time and pass on to consider the two leading characters in his copy. We know the name of one already, and the sonnets to the Friend when seen in...