The Sonnets of William Shakespeare have been an autobiographical document without a biography that can be aligned with it.  Nothing in the Sonnets can be linked to any specific circumstance or event in the life of William of Stratford, the man traditionally thought to be the great poet-dramatist -- and this situation gave rise to the Shakespeare Authorship Question that has continued ever since the serious study of the Sonnets began in the late 1700's. 

This autobiography is written by a foreign man in a foreign tongue, which can never be translated. 

                                                -- T. S. Eliot, 1926

 

The real problem of the Sonnets is to find out who 'Shake-speare' was.  That done, it might be possible to make the crooked straight and the rough places plane - but not till then!  … It has sometimes been said that if we could only know who wrote the Sonnets, we should know the true Shakespeare.

                                                          -- Sir George Greenwood, 1908

THE MONUMENT now alters the paradigm and, in the process, solves the Authorship Mystery once and for all.

The Sonnets of Shakespeare were created by a father for his  unacknowledged royal son:

             As a decrepit father takes delight

             To see his active child do deeds of youth,

             So I, made lame by Fortune's dearest spite,

             Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth.

                                                   Sonnet 37

This "monument" of verse was written and constructed by Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (1550-1604) to preserve the memory of Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton (1573-1624) as his unacknowledged natural son by Queen Elizabeth I of England (1533-1603) and, therefore, a Prince with "true rights" to succeed her as King Henry IX: 

             So should my papers, yellowed with their age,

             Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue,

             And your true rights be termed a Poet's rage,

             And stretched meter of an Antique song.        

                                                    Sonnet 17

    Oxford blamed himself for having brought his royal son into the world without giving him the chance to become who he was:

              Yet this abundant issue seemed to me

              But hope of Orphans, and un-fathered fruit.     

                                                    Sonnet 97

The Queen, who was Beauty and Fortune, had made their son a royal ward or "child of state" raised as Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton.  Although deprived of his true stature, he had not been "un-fathered" or made into a publicly known royal bastard:

           If my dear love were but the child of state,

           It might for fortune's bastard be un-fathered.   

                                               Sonnet 124                

The imperial frown of Queen Elizabeth I, who was also Beauty, cast its dark shadow upon Southampton, turning him from "fair" or royal to "black" bastardy and with no chance to be her "successive heir" to the throne:

               In the old age black was not counted fair,

               Or if it were it bore not beauty's name,

               But now is black beauty's successive heir,

               And Beauty slandered by a bastard shame.      Sonnet 127

(Within the traditional paradigm, these lines of Sonnet 127 refer to dark-eyed brunettes gaining favor over blondes who use cosmetics!  The Folger Library edition paraphrases the lines this way: "Dark coloring once was not accounted beautiful, at least it was not so called; but now darkness is acknowledged to possess beauty, and beauty itself is called a counterfeit.")

THE LIVING RECORD

The monument contains the "living record" of Southampton in the form of a diary or chronicle -- an unofficial but truthful record of real events as they unfolded in real time, resulting in a personal masterpiece that is also a genuine historical and political document for the eyes of posterity:

      Not marble, nor the gilded monuments

      Of Princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme!

      But you shall shine more bright in these contents

      Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time.

      When wasteful war shall Statues overturn,

      And broils root out the work of masonry,

      Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn       

      The living record of your memory.                                   

      'Gainst death and all oblivious enmity

      Shall you pace forth!  Your praise shall still find room

      Even in the eyes of all posterity

      That wear this world out to the ending doom.

           So till the judgment that your self arise,

           You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.               Sonnet 55                     

THE 100-SONNET CENTER

The elegant structure contains precisely 100 consecutive sonnets (27-126) at the exact center of the main structure of one hundred and fifty-two sonnets:

     1-------------26 27-------------------------------------126 127--------------152

       (26 sonnets)                              (100 sonnets)                                  (26 sonnets)

This is the heart of the living record, which begins with Sonnet 27 upon the Essex Rebellion of February 8, 1601, when Essex and Southampton were imprisoned in the Tower as traitors to the crown.

THE INVENTION

The "invention" or special language is explained in Sonnet 76, where Oxford testifies that he uses the "noted weed" or familiar costume of poetry to conceal yet reveal his dangerous truth:

     Why write I still all one, ever the same,

But he's "dresssing old words new" to convey one image on the surface and, simultaneously, unfolding the progress of this single story:

     So all my best is dressing old words new,

     Spending again what is already spent.                      Sonnet 76

THE TIME LINE

      1590         1600   1601                                                 1603

          1------------26        27-------------------------------------------126

The timeline of the Fair Youth series (1-126) is literally the ever-dwindling time left in the life and reign of Elizabeth I, leading to England's inevitable date with the royal succession.

This is also the subject of the "Shakespeare" history plays that began appearing on the popular stage in the 1590s...

The dramatic narrative continues through the death of Queen Elizabeth on March 24, 1603, when the victorious, all-powerful Secretary Robert Cecil continued to hold Henry Wriothesley in the Tower until King James of Scotland was proclaimed King James I of England.

Sonnet 107 is the dramatic climax of the entire narrative, marking Southampton's release from the Tower of London on April 10, 1603, after he had been "supposed as forfeit to a confined doom."

     Not mine own fears nor the prophetic soul

     Of the wide world dreaming on things to come

     Can yet the lease of my true love control,

     Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom.          Sonnet 107

Oxford now uses one sonnet per day until  Sonnet 125 -- marking Queen Elizabeth's funeral procession procession on April 28, 1603, when noblemen "bore the canopy" over her effigy and coffin from London to Westminster Abbey:

     Were't ought to me I bore the canopy,

He closes with Sonnet 126, which concludes the 100-sonnet center and the chronology of what we may now recognize as a dynastic diary that has been leading, all along, to the continuation or collapse of the House of Tudor. 

     O Thou my lovely Boy, who in thy power...       Sonnet 126

In the traditional view, the Sonnets appear to record a "love triangle" involving the poet known as "Shakespeare" with his young friend ("the Fair Youth") and his treacherous mistress ("the Dark Lady"), who steals the younger man away. 

But this is just the fictional story on the surface.  The Sonnets are non-fiction disguised as fiction.  In fact the verses are arranged to preserve a record of the truth about the political struggle during the final years of Elizabeth I -- when Secretary Robert Cecil held Southampton hostage in the Tower until after the Queen's death and the succession of King James. 

Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, was the Hamlet-like nobleman who had used "Shakespeare" to support the political goals of Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, his unacknowledged son by the Queen.  Edward de Vere introduced "Shakespeare" by dedicating "Venus and Adonis" and "The Rape of Lucrece" to Southampton, uniquely linking him to the warrior-like name.  

On the eve of the Essex Rebellion of 1601, he allowed "Richard II" to be staged to rouse emotions in support of a palace coup against Secretary Cecil:

     All men make faults, and even I in this,

     Authorizing thy trespass with compare...      Sonnet 35

When the Rebellion failed, Oxford was forced to sit in judgment of his son at the trial and vote to condemn him to death for treason.  Behind the scenes, however, he labored mightily to save him from execution and gain his freedom:

     Thy adverse party is thy Advocate,

     And 'gainst my self a lawful plea commence.             Sonnet 35

Oxford and Southampton paid "ransom" by agreeing to remain silent about  Southampton's claim to the throne.  Cecil held Southampton hostage in the Tower for two years, until the Queen died and James was proclaimed King.  

The winners of this struggle got to write the "official" history, but Oxford defiantly built a "monument" of verse to preserve "the living record" of Henry Wriothesley for posterity.