Sonnet 154 - Introduction

Introduction

As the last in the famed collection of sonnets written by English poet and playwright William Shakespeare from 1592-1598, Sonnet 154 is most often thought of in a pair with the previous sonnet, number 153. As A. L. Rowse states in Shakespeare’s Sonnets: The Problems Solved, Sonnet 153 and Sonnet 154 “are not unsuitably placed as a kind of coda to the Dark Lady Sonnets, to which they relate.” Rowse calls attention to the fact that Sonnet 153 and 154 “serve quite well to round off the affair” Shakespeare had with Emilia, the woman characterized as a the Dark Lady, and the section of the Dark Lady sonnets". Shakespeare use Greek mythology to address love and despair in relationships. The material in Sonnets 153 and 154 has been shown to relate to the six-line epigram by the Byzantine poet known as Marianus Scholasticus, who published a collection of 3,500 poems called The Greek Anthology. When translated, the epigram resembles Sonnets 153 and 154 which addresses love and the story of Cupid,the torch, and the Nymph's attempt to extinguish the torch.