Breaking the Rules. The Subversive Nature of Shakespeare’s Sonnets to the Dark Lady

Published in 1609, Shakespeare’s Sonnets appear as part of a rich tradition of sonnet sequences, which had reached its peak in England in the nineties of the sixteenth century. The poet necessarily places himself within this tradition but, far from subjecting himself to a passive imitation of the established model, achieves a radically original result. This innovative impetus reaches a climax in the so-called Dark Lady sequence, in which we find a drastic opposition to the traditional Petrarchan paradigm. Nevertheless, critics have generally paid scarce attention to the Dark Lady sonnets, summarily dismissing them as an example of parodic inversion of the Petrarchan model, and thus avoiding an examination of their profound revolutionary character. The aim of this study is to demonstrate that, far from resolving itself in a punctilious overturn of the model in a parodic key, this opposition to the “orthodox” paradigm gives birth to a deep reflection on the philosophical truth of human nature.