NEW VIEWS OF SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS: THE "OTHER POET" IDENTIFIED.
II. – RESEMBLANCES.
The argument for the identification of Dante as the "other poet" referred to by Shakespeare in Sonnets lxxviii.-lxxxvi., as conducted in this Magazine for June of last year,[1] consisted exclusively of a comparison of the description given by Shakespeare of that other poet and his writings with what is known of Dante and with the prominent characteristics of his verse. Although that argument is in itself conclusive and complete, yet the position established by it admits of being confirmed and illustrated by an argument founded on the resemblances observable between the Sonnets of Shakespeare and certain of the writings of Dante. The conclusion to which this special argument leads is, that it is highly probable that Shakespeare, in writing his Sonnets, set some of the writings of Dante before him as the model according to which he framed the structure of his sonnetic poem, and developed the thought, idea, or device expounded in it. But the probability thus arrived at becomes a certainty, when to the argument from resemblances is added another founded on identities in the thought, imagery, and phraseology occurring in the Sonnets of Shakespeare and in some of the writings of Dante. And the certainty thus attained, when combined with the demonstration given in our former argument, will "make assurance doubly sure."[2]
The argument from the resemblances between the Sonnets and certain of Dante's writings may be restricted to a comparison of the structure of Shakespeare's sonnetic poem with the structure of one very notable poem of Dante; and to a comparison of the method of the poetic argument in the Sonnets with the poetic method according to which Dante develops his idea of Beatrice in the " Vita Nuova," the "Commedia," the "Convito," and the "Canzoniere," or minor poems.
The resemblance of the structure of Shakespeare's sonnetic poem to a poem of Dante's in the "Vita Nuova," is such as seems to prove that Shakespeare framed the structure of the Sonnets, considered as a continuous poem, according to the pattern set before him by Dante.
As we have had no pioneer in the process of investigation which has led us to the conclusions to which we have come respecting the Sonnets of Shakespeare in relation to the writings of Dante, it is necessary that we should here distinguish between the structure of the individual sonnets and the structure of the sonnetic poem. This distinction is the same as that between the shape of the several stones in a building, and the shape of the building as made up of the stones fitted into their respective places. The stones may be all of one shape or size, – in this respect their structure is the same. But by their adjusted relations to each other, and their subordination to the main purpose and idea of the architect, they make up the one whole called the building, or the architectural effect designed by the builder. So is it in the structure
