The Title of Shakespeare's Sonnets



"The genitive title of the sequence distinguishes it from all others of the time period, except for the posthumous publication of Astrophil and Stella. "There were plenty ofof other models for 'genitive' titles...but the application of such a title to a literary, poetic, text by a living writer is distinctly unusual. Its purpose may have been to draw attention to Shakespeare's fame and status...the double emphasis on Shakespeare's authorship...and on this as their first publishing was no doubt a marketing strategy" (KDJ 86, 108).