"Shakespeare’s Sonnets undoubtedly describe very personal issues and also contain glimpses of his friends, references to relationships and rivals and comments about current events. However, despite analyses in hundreds of academic volumes and research papers, the world’s best literary minds have not yet reached a happy consensus concerning the friends, relationships, rivals and current events to which Shakespeare refers. The writer and editor Martin Seymour-Smith politely summed up the failure of the scholars: ‘Shakespeare’s Sonnets have had much learned ink wasted upon them.’
The theory I develop in this book is radical and some readers will be surprised by the conclusions drawn. I ask these readers to judge the validity of the conclusions on the strength of the evidence presented, and on the rationality of the argument, not on any preconceptions about what they think the conclusions should be."
Excerpted from 'Chapter One: The Sonnets Enigma' from Who Wrote Shakespeare's Sonnets? by Peter McIntosh
SEE: Oberon Shakespeare Study Group
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