Most of Shakespeare's contemporaries dedicated sonnets to their lovers. Some of Shakespeare's poems were dedicated to a girl he called dark skin, but only 25 of them, and another 65,438+000 sonnets were dedicated to a young friend. Thus, in Shakespeare's sonnets, friendship seems to have a higher position than love. This is not surprising. At that time, the psychology of valuing friends over color was very common. It is in this state of mind that friendship is supreme that Shakespeare praised friendship as the most beautiful and priceless wealth in life in the form of poetry.
In Shakespeare's sonnets, there have been different opinions about who the young friend involved in the first part is. It is generally believed that he is Shakespeare's only patron, the Earl of Southampton. After presenting two long poems, Shakespeare had a soft spot for sonnets, so he wrote them to Southampton, where friendship grew deeper and deeper. Besides expressing feelings through poetry, Shakespeare's other purpose is more urgent. The Earl of Southampton is young and handsome, but he doesn't want his marriage to get into trouble, and his mother wants his son to get married and have children as soon as possible to ensure the prosperity of the family. So the countess entrusted Shakespeare with persuasion, and a group of sonnets with the theme of urging an early family was born. But young people often ignore the advice of the elderly, which leads to anger and regret. Southampton's later experience proved this point:1In February 598, the restless Southampton had an affair with Elizabeth Vernon, the queen's maid, which led to her pregnancy and forced her to get married. The queen always shows no mercy to those who destroy the chastity of her maids. Southampton may be afraid of punishment and leave his pregnant wife for continental Europe. In Paris, he gambled in a tennis match and lost penniless. He had to return to London after his wife gave birth to a daughter in June 5438 +065438+ 10. From this point of view, if Southampton had accepted Shakespeare's suggestion, he would not have fallen into such a mess if he had climbed into the marriage of his relatives step by step and revived his family business.
After 126 poems praising friendship, the poet's creative enthusiasm was inspired by a "dark girl", who spoke highly of his faithful love for his lover. At that time, whether it was black skin, black hair or black eyes, it was not fashionable and did not conform to people's aesthetic vision at that time, but the poet praised his lover's black:
The essence of beauty is black, so I will swear,
Everything that doesn't match your skin color is ugly.
—— (No.132)
It can be seen how crazy the poet is about the dark-skinned girl! But his true feelings were not reciprocated by love. She is a bohemian woman who is not loyal to the poet. Later, she seduced the poet's young friend, causing double betrayal. The poet's heart is both painful and contradictory. He said to his friend earnestly, "it is not my greatest sorrow that you have her, but I can't say that I love her deeply." She has you as my main worry, and losing love will make me sad. " Finally, the poet saved his friendship with his young friends with tolerance, and they made up.
If we can see the poet's emotional world from the sonnets, then this world is a world of truth, goodness and beauty. In these poems praising friendship and love, the poet put forward the highest standard of life he advocated: truth, goodness and beauty and the combination of the three.