Sonnet
It was, however, Sir Philip Sidney's sequence "Astrophel and Stella" (1591) that started the English vogue for sonnet sequences. The next two decades saw sonnet sequences by William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, Michael Drayton, Samuel Daniel, Fulke Greville, William Drummond of Hawthornden, and many others. These sonnets were all essentially inspired by the Petrarchan tradition, and generally treat of the poet's love for some woman, with the exception of Shakespeare's sequence of 154 sonnets. The form is often named after Shakespeare, not because he was the first to write in this form but because he became its most famous practitioner. The form consists of fourteen lines structured as three quatrains and a couplet. The third quatrain generally introduces an unexpected sharp thematic or imagistic "turn", the volta. In Shakespeare's sonnets, however, the volta usually comes in the couplet, and usually summarizes the theme of the poem or introduces a fresh new look at the theme. With only a rare exception (for example, Shakespeare's Sonnet 145 in iambic tetrameter), the meter is iambic pentameter.
Sonnet 56
Sonnet 56 is part of the Fair Youth sequence. This sequence spans sonnets 1-126. Furthermore, the first 77 sonnets are called the "Procreation" section, the rest 78-126 the "Rival Poet" and 127-154 is the "Dark Lady" section. In the Fair Youth section Shakespeare details his feelings towards the young man that he is in love with. This sonnet was published along with the rest in 1609 in Quarto. There is a debate as to why the sonnets were published in 1609. One theory affirmed by Duncan-Jones, is that these sonnets were published in order to "put right the wrong done" by the unauthorized publishing by Jaggard in 1599. They are thought to have been written long before the publication in 1609. Some researchers have used clues from Sonnet 107 with its allusions to Queen Elizabeth to date it to 1596. If the sonnets were written in the order that they appear in Quarto, then it is plausible that some were written before 1596.