A Life of William Shakespeare with portraits and facsimiles. Sir Sidney Lee
authorship of ‘Henry VI.’
Shakespeare’s assimilative power.
Marlowe’s influence in tragedy. ‘Richard III.’
‘Comedy of Errors’ in Gray’s Inn Hall.
Early plays doubtfully assigned to Shakespeare.
VI—THE FIRST APPEAL TO THE READING PUBLIC
Publication of ‘Venus and Adonis.’
Enthusiastic reception of the poems.
VII—THE SONNETS AND THEIR LITERARY HISTORY
The vogue of the Elizabethan sonnet.
Shakespeare’s first experiments.
Majority of Shakespeare’s sonnets composed in 1594.
Their piratical publication in 1609. ‘A Lover’s Complaint.’
The form of Shakespeare’s Sonnets.
Want of continuity. The two ‘groups.’
Main topics of the first ‘group.’
Main topics of the second ‘group.’
Lack of genuine sentiment in Elizabethan sonnets. Their dependence on French and Italian models.
Sonnetteers’ admission of insincerity.
Contemporary censure of sonnetteers’ false sentiment. ‘Gulling Sonnets.’
Shakespeare’s scornful allusion to sonnets in his plays.
VIII—THE BORROWED CONCEITS OF THE SONNETS
Slender autobiographical element in Shakespeare’s sonnets. The imitative element.
Shakespeare’s claims of immortality for his sonnets a borrowed conceit.
Conceits in sonnets addressed to a woman.
Gabriel Harvey’s ‘Amorous Odious Sonnet.’
IX—THE PATRONAGE OF THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON
Biographic fact in the ‘dedicatory’ sonnets.
The Earl of Southampton the poet’s sole patron.
Rivals in Southampton’s favour.
Shakespeare’s fear of a rival poet.
Barnabe Barnes probably the rival.