Francis Meres and the Cultural Contexts of Shakespeare's Rival Poet Sonnets

ISSN： 0034-6551

Source： Review of English Studies, Vol.56, Iss.224, 2005-04, pp. : 224-246

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Abstract

Shakespeare's sonnets 78–86 concern the Speaker's rivalry with other poets and especially with one ‘better spirit’ who is ‘learned’ and ‘polished’. Correct dating of these sonnets (1598–1600), on evidence independent of any supposed identifications of historical personages, allows profitable exploration of the cultural context in which they were written. The conclusions are not that any single historical writer was the Rival Poet, but that around 1599 Shakespeare had special reason to compare his achievements with those of Marlowe, Chapman, Jonson, and others, who posed various kinds of threats to his pre-eminence, even though Marlowe was by then no more than ‘a familiar ghost’. Francis Meres's ‘Comparative Discourse’ in his Palladis Tamia (1598), in particular, provided such a strong stimulus towards the creation of the Rival Poet group as to constitute a definite source.