Key Themes in Shakespeare's Sonnets

1. Content

time
(enemy to beauty; linked with death; overcome by art, by his sonnets; can be cheated through children; creates a thematic thread through the sonnets)

love triangle
(creats a whole spectrum of emotions 'two loves have I'; drama; frisson about the sexuality of the relationships; creates a narrative thread linking the sonnets)

overtones of the 'battle between sexes'
(do the sonnets assume one role for mean and another for women)

nature
(a source of imagery, especially regarding decay and beauty; interpreted philosophically)

emotional snapshot
(each sonnet can be read as an 'emotional snapshot, tracing the feelings of the writer through relationships)

2. Style

imagery
(heavy reliance on metaphor, leading to some ambiguity; metaphors are often 'intellectually linked' rather than 'sensually')

structure of the sonnet
(linking beginning to end (Helen Vendler stuff); role of the final couplet can give an interesting twist to what has gone before - at other times, it summarises; sometimes a 'key word' (or a sound) runs right through a poem; the use of the 'volta' (or 'turn': a characteristic of Italian sonnets, Petrarch and Dante) at the division between 8 and 6 lines; quatrain often linked to sense to create argument.)

voice
(we expect the first person, we're less sure at times who is being addressed: sometimes like letters, or conversations; other times, they're more like diaries, occasionally the writer is arguing 'with himself'; often mood is created by grammar and syntax, the way that the poem 'speaks'.)

a wide range of Elizabethan poetic techniques
(oxymoron, antithesis, chiasmus, paradox, and so on)