“Secret Shakespeare: Astonishing Discovery of a Previously Unseen Sonnet Sparks Debate Among Scholars!”
Unpacking The Political Repurposing Of The Sonnet
Public DomainA 1611 portrait of William Shakespeare.
Veronese discovered the new version of “Sonnet 116” among a 17th-century “miscellany,” a collection of texts from multiple authors. Many of the manuscript’s texts were political, with references to current events in the English Civil War and Christmas carols that had been banned due to their politically charged content.
The collection belonged to Elias Ashmole, a politician who took the side of the royalists in the English Civil War. The conflict, which was fought between 1642 and 1651, centered around the dueling powers of the English monarchy and Parliament. The country was divided into two camps: royalists who supported the Crown under Charles I and parliamentarians who supported increasing the power of the legislature and dissolving the monarchy.
Public DomainElias Ashmole, a 17th-century politician and staunch royalist during the English Civil War.
In this charged atmosphere, “Shakespeare’s text is transformed from praise of romantic constancy to political constancy,” Veronese explained in a recent article published in The Review of English Studies.
The existence of this revised version of the sonnet has surprised researchers. For decades, Shakespearean scholars believed that his sonnets were not widely circulated prior to the 1700s. Upon their publishing in 1609, the poems were a commercial failure and were rarely discussed in popular culture.
However, this most recent discovery has turned this idea on its head, reflecting a widespread awareness of the sonnet even during the 17th century.
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