Shakespeare's sonnets
The primary source of Shakespeare’s sonnets is a quarto published in 1609 titled "Shakespeare’s Sonnets." It contains 154 sonnets, which are followed by the long poem "A Lover's Complaint". Thirteen copies of the quarto have survived in fairly good shape from the 1609 edition, which is the only edition; there were no other printings. There is evidence in a note on the title page of one of the extant copies that the great Elizabethan actor Edward Alleyn bought a copy in June 1609 for one shilling.
Sonnet 57
Rhian Williams asserts, "In literary value Shakespeare's sonnets are notably unequal. Many reach levels of lyric melody and meditative energy that are hardly to be matched elsewhere in poetry". His 57th sonnet is such a one and epitomises Shakespeare's signature sonnet structure as it conveys the influences of the 14th-century poet, Petrarch, and showcases again Shakespeare's talent. In fact, Danijela Kambasković-Sawers generalises, "The sonnet sequence genre constructs a double sense of immediacy: drawing on the lyricism of its constituent sonnets, it also often generates a perception of a personal narrative when the sequence is read from beginning to end". She goes on to make a comparison between the two poets and the structures of their subsequent sonnets when he states, "Sonnet sequences like Petrarch's or Shakespeare's make possible a narrative-by-episode". Kambasković-Sawers elaborates on the subject of Shakespeare’s controversial yet ambiguous speaker and asserts that while ambiguous speakers were characteristic of both Petrarch's work and a signature of the Elizabethan time period, Shakespeare's differed. "The difference between Shakespeare's and other great Elizabethan sonnet sequences lies in the degree and complexity of his main character's ambiguity, as well as in the skill with which this complexity is managed. Shakespeare's contradictory speaker stands as one of the most important elements of the artistic impact and lasting vitality of the sequence".