Mr. Tyler's work on the sonnets ranks higher than that of
Coleridge on the plays. I do not mean to say that it is on the same
intellectual level with the work of Coleridge, though it shows wide
reading, astonishing acuteness, and much skill in the marshalling of
argument. But Mr. Tyler had the good fortune to be the first to give to
the personages of the sonnets a local habitation and a name, and that
unique achievement puts him in a place by himself far above the mass of
commentators. Before his book appeared in 1890 the sonnets lay in the
dim light of guess-work. It is true that Hallam had adopted the
hypothesis of Boaden and Bright, and had identified William Herbert,
Earl of Pembroke, with the high-born, handsome youth for whom
Shakespeare, in the sonnets, expressed such passionate affection; but
still, there were people who thought that the Earl of Southampton filled
the requirements even better than William Herbert, and as I say, the
whole subject lay in the twilight of surmise and supposition.
Mr.
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