Myth of the Month 10: Who Was Shakespeare? -- pt. 2: "Comfort and Despair"
Historiansplaining: A historian tells you why everything you know is wrong
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Shakespeare's Sonnets - A Brief History
Only 13 copies of the original 16 o nine edition survive, which suggests that it did not sell very well and was not very highly valued. There is no external indication that shakespeare wanted or tried to get them to a wider audience. And shortly after the publication of the sonnets, sh Shakespeare actually retired. He stopped writing by no later than 16 11; he had left london and resettled in stratford by 16 ten. The poems w none of these things. So for all these reasons, we have to regard the sonnets as contextually very different from the plays.
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