Today, on My Poetic Side, we take a look at the Shakespeare love poem that has been newly discovered.
Rare Copy of William Shakespeare Love Poem Found
A rare copy of one of the most famous love poems to have ever been written has been found after hundreds of years.
The hand-written copy of a version of Sonnet 116, written by William Shakespeare, was discovered by Dr Leah Veronese in a collection of 17th-century poetry at the University of Oxford. The manuscript had been tucked in amongst papers belonging to Elias Ashmole, the founder of the university’s Ashmolean Museum. The sonnet was found in the miscellany – a type of manuscript which includes a number of texts from a range of authors on numerous subjects. They had been stored at the Bodleian Library. Leafing through the manuscript, she felt that what she was looking at was an odd version of the sonnet.
The original catalogue for the manuscript, which was put together in the 19th century described the poem as “on constancy in love” but made no mention of Shakespeare. In this version of the poem, parts have been altered and additional lines have been added. This is only the second known manuscript copy of the poem to have ever been found.
An expert in Shakespeare from the university has hailed this as an “exciting discovery” that will help researchers to understand the popularity of the bard in the years that followed his death. It is believed that the changes to the first line of the sonnet and the missing poet information are why the poem has remained unnoticed for so many years.
Other works in the miscellany date from the 1640s and are rather politically motivated. The period in question was the English Civil War, which was fought between the Parliamentarians and the Royalists. Ashmole is known to have been a strong Royalist and the lines which have been added to the sonnet can be read as an appeal for loyalty, both political and religious. Experts suggest that additional lines that have been added transform the sonnet from
“a meditation on romantic love into a powerful political statement”.
The opening lines of the sonnet are changed from
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments; love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds
…to:
Self blinding error seize all those minds
Who with false appellations call that love
Which alters when it alterations finds
It is also interesting to note that the sonnet, which is also sometimes referred to as “Let me not to the marriage of true minds” was not particularly popular whilst Shakespeare was alive. This new version perhaps sheds some light on why that might have been.
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