[20.  Vol.  XII, pp. 61 ff.]

The battle has raged with particular violence about the sonnets.  Most scholars assume that we have in them a direct presentation (fremstilling) of a definite period in the life of the poet.  And by placing this period directly before the creation of Hamlet, Brandes has succeeded in making the relations to the “dark lady” a crisis in Shakespeare’s life.  The story, which, as Brandes tells it, has a remarkable similarity to an ultra-modern naturalistic novel, becomes even more piquant since Brandes knows the name of the lady, nay, even of the faithless friend.  All this information Brandes has, of course, taken from Thomas Tyler’s introduction to the Irving edition of the sonnets (1890), but his passion for the familiar anecdote has led him to embellish it with immense enthusiasm and circumstantiality.

The hypothesis, however, is essentially weak.  Collin disagrees absolutely with Lee that the sonnets are purely conventional, without the slightest biographical value.  Mr. Lee has weakened his case by admitting that “key-sonnet” No. 144 is autobiographical.  Now, if this be true, then one must assume that the sonnets set forth Shakespeare’s relations to a real man and a real woman.  But the most convincing argument against the Herbert-Fitton theory lies in the chronology.  It is certain that the sonnet fashion was at its height immediately after the publication of Sidney’s sequence in 1591, and it seems equally certain that it had fallen off by 1598.  This chronology is rendered probable by two facts about Shakespeare’s work.  First, Shakespeare employs the sonnet in dialogue in Two Gentlemen of Verona and in Romeo and Juliet.  These plays belong to the early nineties.  Second, the moods of the sonnets exactly correspond, on the one hand, to the exuberant sensuality of Venus and Adonis, on the other, to the restraint of the Lucrece.

An even safer basis for determining the chronology of the sonnets Collin finds in the group in which the poet laments his poverty and his outcast state.  If the sonnets are autobiographical—­and Collin agrees with Brandes that they are—­then this group (26, 29, 30, 31, 37, 49, 66, 71-75, 99, 110-112, 116, 119, 120, 123, and 124) must refer to a time when the poet was wretched, poor, and obscure.  And in this case, the sonnets cannot be placed at 1598-99, when Shakespeare was neither poor nor despised, a time in which, according to Brandes, he wrote his gayest comedies.

It seems clear from all this that the sonnets cannot be placed so late as 1598-1600.  They do not fit the facts of Shakespeare’s life at this time.  But they do fit the years from 1591 to 1594, and especially the years of the plague, 1592-3, when the theaters were generally closed, and Shakespeare no doubt had to battle for a mere existence.  In 1594 Shakespeare’s position became more secure.  He gained the favor of Southampton and dedicated the Rape of Lucrece to him.