Biographical Reconfigurations of Shakespeare’s Sonnets: John Benson, Charles Gildon, and the Catullan Epigram

Abstract

ABSTRACT For certain scholars, it is Edmond Malone’s edition of Shakespeare’s Sonnets and the modern editorial tradition that followed which forged a crucial link between the author’s life and work. This article refines that idea by focusing on John Benson’s ‘second edition’ of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, entitled Poems (1640), and its early editorial tradition. It argues that early editors and publishers of the Sonnets restricted, manipulated, and exploited its biographical potential. This engagement came to a head in the early eighteenth century when Charles Gildon became the first editor to articulate an explicit biographical approach to the Sonnets (albeit Benson’s version). Gildon considered the Benson sonnets to be mostly epigrams, which gave his biographical approach distinctive features, heretofore unrecognised, such as heightened miscellaneity and internal fragmentation, and associations with the ancient writer Catullus. This earlier version of the biographical approach, long eclipsed by that of Malone, still holds valuable insight for readers of the Sonnets today.