Poetry News –

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
-- William Shakespeare

Everybody has heard Shakespeare's love sonnets at one point or another. For those who have studied the sonnets in depth, it is widely believed that the central theme found within the passages refers to a love triangle. More specifically, the popular theory holds that the love triangle took place during the 1590s, and involved Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton as the "Fair Youth" and a mysterious "Dark Lady."

However, a new theory was recently entertained in a novel about the sonnets titled, "The Monument: "Shake-Speares Sonnets" by Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford." New York novelist, Hank Whittemore, wrote the 900 page text, which is one of the only books to ever attempt a coherent explanation of all 154 sonnets.

In the book, Whittemore claims that he has solved the age old mysterious love triangle.
He goes on to explain that the central story actually takes in the first few years of the 17th century, when the Earl of Southampton was incarcerated in the Tower of London for treason. It turns out, that the mysterious "Dark Lady" is actually Queen Elizabeth I of England, who was figuratively "stealing" Southampton by keeping him in her prison. Actually, this is just the beginning of the extremely in depth examination which
Whittemore encompasses in his new theory.

For his efforts and refreshing detailed analysis, Whittemore was recently awarded the Distinguished Scholarship Award of 2006 at the Shakespeare Authorship Studies Conference in Concordia University, Portland, Oregon.