| | Shakespeare's Sonnets |
 | | Where traditionally the sonnet beloved was a chaste, haughty and fair complexioned goddess, Shakespeare's poet is bound to a charming but depraved nobleman and a promiscuously tormenting "dark lady." The desires that the poet can satisfy in his commerce with the woman only sicken and degrade him. |
 | | For precedents Shakespeare could look to the French sonnet cycles of Ronsard, Du Bellay, and in particular the two short but remarkable sonnets cycles of Étienne de la Boétie (1530-1563); and in English to the cycles by Philip Sydney (1554-1586) and many minor writers such as Richard Field and John Davies. |
 | | Herbert was a prominent courtier during the reign of James I and a munificent patron of the literary arts (the Folio edition of Shakespeare's plays is dedicated to him, and he was a sponsor of the dramatist Ben Jonson). |
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