{"id":"01KG6QHPQRPHP4XHEBHB0KCSZN","cid":"bafkreigm3j5jnm2ojrtqpohi3tgxrh5wereswdtuotwajkfdjxv46sziu4","type":"file","properties":{"cid":"bafkreifge2gnw4xc6yh5trhjizcx442l7yzrrticphfp7xhhuiaazzqvoq","content_type":"image/jpeg","filename":"06_poems_pericles_facsimiles_1905_oxford_page_0419.jpg","height":2400,"key":"pdf-page-1769752548764-odid1t4hgih","label":"06_poems_pericles_facsimiles_1905_oxford_page_0419.jpg","ocr_model":"mistral-ocr-latest","page_number":419,"size":524650,"text":"8\n# SONNETS OF SHAKESPEARE\n\nThe interpretation.\n\nThe sonnets, which number 154, are not altogether of homogeneous character. Several are detached lyrics of impersonal application. But the majority of them are addressed to a man, while more than twenty towards the end are addressed to a woman.¹ In spite of the vagueness of intention which envelops some of the poems, and the slenderness of the links which bind together many consecutive sonnets, the whole collection is well calculated to create the illusion of a series of earnest personal confessions. The collection has consequently been often treated as a self-evident excerpt from the poet’s autobiography.\n\nIn the bulk of the sonnets the writer professes to describe his infatuation with a beautiful youth and his wrath with a disdainful mistress, who alienates the boy’s affection and draws him into dissolute courses. But any strictly literal or autobiographic interpretation has to meet a formidable array of difficulties. Two general objections present themselves on the threshold of the discussion. In the first place, the autobiographic interpretation is to a large extent in conflict with the habit of mind and method of work which are disclosed in the rest of Shakespeare’s achievement. In the second place, it credits the poet with humiliating experiences of which there is no hint elsewhere.\n\nOn the first point, little more needs saying than that Shakespeare’s mind was dominated and engrossed by genius for drama, and that, in view of his supreme mastery of dramatic comments on textual or critical points, which lie outside the scope of the controversy, seem to me acute and admirable.\n\n¹ It is not clear from the text whether all the sonnets addressed to a man are inscribed to the same person. Mingled, too, with those addressed to a man, are a few which offer no internal evidence whereby the sex of the addressee can be determined, and, when detached from their environment, were invariably judged by seventeenth and eighteenth-century readers to be addressed to a woman.\n\nShakespeare’s dramatic habit of mind.","text_extracted_at":"2026-01-30T06:18:12.720Z","text_extracted_by":"ocr-service","text_has_content":true,"text_images_count":0,"text_source":"ocr","uploaded":true,"width":1750},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6Q7Q25RHMFT3SJXPV18VFF","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KG6NWQ2H2K4PGG7H4ZHYCZ3Y","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6QHPPSGTJFK1Q8REQRNBNW","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6QHPPSGPQQPJ58SVD7ER2Z","predicate":"next"},{"peer":"01KG6R6FTQJ036KKEHWKDJM71B","peer_label":"06_poems_pericles_facsimiles_1905_oxford_page_0419_medium.jpg","peer_type":"file","predicate":"has_derivative"},{"peer":"01KG6R6QN24EMRH6M8N03DR9S4","peer_label":"06_poems_pericles_facsimiles_1905_oxford_page_0419_thumb.jpg","peer_type":"file","predicate":"has_derivative"},{"peer":"01KG6S2X2EBB305ENM00G16GWA","predicate":"has_assembly"}],"ver":7,"created_at":"2026-01-30T05:55:50.136Z","ts":"2026-01-30T06:22:50.716Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFFC4A8W8939TXGEXCK439ZK"}}