Shakespeare’s Sonnets, or #Bard154


This year I have been reducing all of Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets (14-line poems) into quatrains of 140 characters each.  On Monday I tweeted them (for Twitter’s specifications I had to reduce them to 136 characters before publishing them).

I reduced them  using the only reading of the sonnets that makes complete sense to me: both the Baby Tudor Theory and  the Prince Tudor Theory.

Edward Devere, XVII Earl of Oxford

Edward Devere, XVII Earl of Oxford

These theories can be broken down into three big points.

  1. Edward De Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford is the author of the works of William Shakespeare.
  2. In an Oedipal nightmare come true, De Vere is the son of Queen Elizabeth (called the Baby Tudor Theory), …
  3. … and together the two of them had a son of their own, Henry Wriothesley, 2nd Earl of Southampton (called the Prince Tudor Theory).

I should point out that for those who believe De Vere is Shakespeare, not of all of them believe all three points, some only believe the first. But for me, the sonnets don’t make sense unless you believe in at least the third point, if not the second.

But to believe in all three points means suddenly everything about the works of Shakespeare makes complete and total sense. (I of course am open to other theories where everything makes sense, but at the moment this is it.)

So here it goes, I invite you to read my tweets. The best way to do that is in these three steps.

  1. Click here: https://twitter.com/hashtag/Bard154?src=hash
  2. Click the LIVE tab to see all the sonnet tweets
  3. Scroll down to the bottom to start from the first sonnet and move to the last (with the exception of one sonnet). Alternatively, scroll below the first sonnet and start a few tweets before the dedication tweet. Either way, you will need to click “more tweets” until you get to where you want to start.

Joshua Gray

Washington DC native poet that now lives in Kentucky.

You may also like...