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Less notorious than his plays, Shakespeare’s sonnets assimilate a secret map with hidden clues that lead to precious treasures. The intimate, even confessional tone of the 154 rhymes urges the eager reader to believe that the poetic voice is The Bard himself, who playfully volunteers the key to unlock the mysteries of his heart.
And yet�� Do the sonnets tell a coherent story? If they do, is this story real or fictional? The fact that Thomas Thorpe, a poet, editor and admirer of Shakespeare, and not the author himself published this collection casts a shadow over the present order of the sonnets and their ostensible story line. Are they the product of literary artifice or the purest expression of the poet’s sentiments and his personal experiences?
Allow me to reply with another question.
Does it really matter?
The audacious imagery, the staggering metaphors, the musical alliteration, the ironic polysemies, the utter mastery of the language bursting into florid fireworks and the universality and relevancy of paramount themes such as the passage of time, the impending oblivion that comes with death and the convoluted nature of love constitute the invaluable legacy of the poet on their own. Everything else is mere speculation, but as per usual, Shakespeare teases with ambiguous piquancy as shown in Sonnet 144, which summarizes the main “plot�� of the anthology in 4 stanzas:

“Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still;
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman colour'd ill.��

A love triangle that consists of a “fair man��, a “dark woman�� and the poet himself divides the sonnets in two noticeably different sections and presents a subversive approach to the foundations of courtly love employed by medieval troubadours because the “Muse�� that stimulates inspiration seems to possess an adrogynous essence. Personal pronouns shift from verse to verse and the poet’s self-awareness plays an active role in the exulted display of emotions that becomes a faithful mirror for the complex gradation of the affairs of the heart. A prolongued meditation on the ethos of beauty and platonic love is interwoven with anguished cogitation about the inexorable passage of time that might wither the beloved’s blooming youth but never his é������-�����ٲ���, which is immortalized in the poet’s writing:

“So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.��
Sonnet 18.

Whereas the “fair knight�� awakens tenderness, blind adoration and the purest expressions of affection in stanzas that are replete with natural imagery and astute analogies of daily life scenes, the “dark lady��, addressed only in the last 28 sonnets, disturbs the poet with her unchaste promiscuity and adulterous love. The transcendental undertone of the former sonnets fades away leaving space only for satire, sexual lust and aggrieved reproaches. The harmonic features of the male lover contrast with the sensuously dark eyes of the woman, which lure the poet into debauchery and temptation against his wishes. Lies, deception ad cynical rebuffs are the highpoints of the puns and wordplays in the last sonnets. The language becomes merely explicative, if also prodigiously lucid and accusatory, and loses the hiperbolic flamboyance of the opening sonnets.

“The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.��
Sonnet 129.

Ironically enough, both lovers, fair man and dark woman, remain anonymous while the true identity of the poet has created havoc for centuries and his works continue to unleash passions among all kind of readers around the world. Shakespeare lives on in his words. In their suggestive rhythm, in their polifacetic meanings, in their musical texture.
Shakespeare’s poetry delves deep into the abysses of the human psyche, into the labyrinthine jumble of irrational, desperate love, into the stinky gutters of conscience, jealousy and betrayal, and still, he winks back with a lopsided smile and restores the magic of humanity in a single couplet:

“For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold
That nothing me a something sweet to thee:
Make but my name thy love, and love that still,
And then thou lovest me for my name is 'Will.' ��
Sonnet 136.

Miracles do not seem mambo-jumbo after reading Shakespeare’s sonnets, and art becomes magic, for divine providence is evinced stanza after stanza and my will submits to Will’s power...Subjugation was never sweeter!