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 105
Religious themes are also prevalent in this sonnet. The sonnets were published in 1609, composed during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, who re-instituted The Anglican Church in England. One of the tenets of Protestantism was the belief that Catholic practices of worshiping the multitude of Saints and the Virgin Mary were practices of idolatry and were henceforth blasphemous. Hence, Shakespeare's claim against idolatry indicates his love is always directed at the same youth. Other interpretations make the claim that the religious nature of the poem is ironic, that Shakespeare is well aware that the love he describes is indeed idolatry. Scholar Jane Roessner states that "the speaker seems done with all efforts to persuade; now the sonnets are set up at once to deceive and reveal: to appear to be genuine praises ... while in fact covertly revealing the corruption of the friend, and ultimately, of the sonnets themselves which had at first seemed to be stays against corruption". Thus, the purpose behind the sonnet is one of intentional double standards. In addition, Shakespeare is playing with the religious perversity, using the Christian imagery as a way of describing his love.