Sonetts / Soneti

Perfectly polished, with unusual formal structures, today known as the Shakespearean sonnet, Shakespeare's 154 sonnets rely on the Petrarchian tradition and convention in terms of content, thematic and intuitiveness. However, the poet's intellectual and verbal interventions in this established literary convention result in unusual semantic shifts and poetic ambiguity. For example, we find hymns of love and loyalty, or poignant laments for the absence of a loved one, in verses dedicated to the Friend, while verses about fickleness and infidelity are read exclusively in verses dedicated to the Black Lady, an enigmatic and beautiful woman. Shakespeare rethinks the concept of love, which in his masterpiece grows into a comprehensive, individual and universal human experience.