Discriminating brevity is a law of the right biographic method. - Sidney Lee

I believe that the luxuriance of Shakespeare's dramatic instinct largely dominates that outburst of lyric melody which gives the Sonnets their life.

Shakespeare avows, although in phraseology that is often cryptic, the experiences of his own heart

a purely literal interpretation of the impassioned protestations of affection for a "lovely boy", which course through the sonnets, casts a slur on the dignity of the poet's name which scarcely bears discussion