The main reason why Shakespeare's sonnets have attracted many readers throughout the ages is because of the "sweetness" of his poems, that is, they use pleasant language and melody to praise the most beautiful emotions in the world—— Friendship and love.
Most of Shakespeare's contemporaries dedicated their sonnets to their lovers. Shakespeare also dedicated some of his poems to a woman he called a dark-skinned girl, but there were only 25 of them, and more than 100 others. The sonnets are all dedicated to a young friend. This shows that friendship seems to have a higher status than love in Shakespeare's sonnets. This is not surprising, as the mentality of favoring friends over sex was very common at the time. It is in this mentality that friendship comes first that Shakespeare praises friendship as the most beautiful and priceless treasure in life in the form of poetry.
In Shakespeare's sonnets, there are always different opinions on 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 Shakespeare dedicated two long poems, he became particularly fond of sonnets, so he wrote them as a gift to Southampton, with whom he had a growing friendship. In addition to conveying love through poetry, Shakespeare had another more urgent purpose. The Earl of Southampton was young, handsome, and charming, but he was unwilling to let his marriage get stuck, while his mother hoped that her son would get married and have children as soon as possible to ensure the prosperity of the family. So the countess commissioned Shakespeare to persuade her, and a set of sonnets with the theme of urging an early family to continue the family line was born. But young people often ignore the advice of their elders, which results in them getting burned and regretting it. Southampton's later experience proved this point: in February 1598, the restless Southampton had an affair with the Queen's maid Elizabeth Vernon, causing her to become pregnant and forced to marry. The Queen was merciless towards those who violated the virginity of her ladies-in-waiting, and Southampton, presumably fearing punishment, left his pregnant wife behind and went to the Continent. In Paris, he participated in a tennis match and gambled, but lost penniless. He had to return to London only after his wife gave birth to a daughter in November. From this point of view, if Southampton had accepted Shakespeare's advice and followed the step-by-step process of getting married, having children and revitalizing the family business, they would not have ended up in such an embarrassing situation.
After 126 poems praising friendship, the poet's creative enthusiasm was inspired by a "dark-skinned girl". He praised his loyal love for his lover. During that period, black skin, black hair, or dark eyes were not fashionable and did not conform to people's aesthetic vision at that time, but the poet praised his lover's blackness:
The essence of beauty is black, and I will be so I swear,
Everything that goes against your skin color is ugly.
——(No. 132)
It can be seen how crazy the poet’s feelings for the dark-skinned girl have reached! But his true feelings were not reciprocated by love. She was a dissolute and promiscuous woman who was not loyal to the poet. She later seduced the poet's young friend, causing a double betrayal. The poet's heart was painful and contradictory. He said to his friend sincerely: "You possessing her is not my greatest sorrow, but my love for her cannot be said to be deep. Her possessing you is my main worry. This love "The loss makes me even more sad." In the end, the poet restored the friendship with his young friend with a tolerant heart, and the two reconciled.
If we can see the poet's emotional world from the sonnets, then this world is a unified world of truth, goodness and beauty. In these poems praising friendship and love, the poet puts forward the highest standard of life that he advocates: truth, goodness, beauty and the combination of these three.
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