William Shakespeare Research Paper

One of the most influential people of literature is William Shakespeare. Throughout his lifetime, he rose from being a son of a glove maker that was unable to afford higher education being a captivating writer that wrote 38 plays, 154 sonnets, and 2 narrative poems through his lifetime. One of the most interesting things about William Shakespeare is looking at the mystery being the Dedication of the Sonnets.

The Sonnets starts off with the dedication saying, “To the Only Begetter of These Ensuing Sonnets Mr. W.H. All Happiness and That Eternity Promised by Our Ever-Living Poet Wisheth the Well-Wishing Adventurer in Setting Forth, T.T. (The Norton Anthology English Literature, Vol. 1). The main question that comes from the dedication is, who

W.H. could possibly be is Henry Wriothesely. Henry Wriothesely, the earl of Southampton, was born in 1573 and died in 1624. Henry Wriothesely, Earl of Southhampton, was a royal ward that was being urged to marry in the 1590s and was seen an an idea of who the fair young man might have been. In the poems, the fair man is seen to be a man of higher class that is not willing to marry because he wants a homosexual relationship and William Shakespeare flipped the “Mr. W.H.” initials to protect his identity. Another reason why Henry Wriothesely could be the man that the sonnets were dedicated to was because of the other deductions that William Shakespeare made to him. William Shakespeare dedicated his narrative poem Venus and Adonis in 1593 and The Rape of Lucrece in 1594. in The Rape of Lucrece, the dedication says, “To the Right Honourable Henry Wriothesely, Earl of Southampton, and Baron of Tichfield. The love I dedicate to your lordship is without end; whereof this pamphlet, without beginning, is but a superfluous moiety. The warrant I have of your honourable disposition, not the worth of my untutored lines, makes it assured of acceptance. What I have done is yours; what I have to do is yours; being part in all I have, devoted yours. Were my worth greater, my duty would show greater; meantime, as it is, it is bound to your lordship, to whom I wish long life, still lengthened with all happiness”. Showing us that William Shakespeare truly respected Henry. Another possible reason that Henry could have been the person that the sonnets were dedicated to was because he was a visitor to the theatre. This has a major impact on why he could be the person the sonnets were dedicated to because William Shakespeare spent most of his time in the theatre before it shut down due to the spread of the plague. When the plague spread, William Shakespeare wrote the 154 sonnets and that has become some of the most influential pieces of