Sonnet 23

Sonnet 23 is one of a sequence of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare, and is a part of the Fair Youth sequence.

In the sonnet, the speaker is not able to adequately speak of his love, because of the intensity of his feelings. He compares himself to an actor onstage who is struck by fear and cannot perform his part, or like a ferocious beast or a passionate human filled with rage, and whose over-abundant emotion defeats the expressing of it. He forgets the correct words that the rituals of love deserve. The passion of his love seems to fall apart, as it is over-burdened with emotion. So he encourages his young friend to read and then respond to the poet's written expressions of his love. The sonnet ends with the paradoxes — books that cannot speak will speak, if eyes will hear.

The metaphor of the actor has drawn biographical interest and comment. Shakespeare uses a metaphor from the theatre to express the idea of the speaker's impotence in performing the "ceremony of love’s right" (line 6). Instead, the lover must read beyond such a performance, and read “between the lines” to understand the poet's love, as it is expressed in the silences between the words. This sonnet seems to suggest the limits of language.

Sonnet 23 is part of what is known as the "Fair Youth" sonnet sequence, poems 1-126. It was first published, along with the other sonnets, by Thomas Thorpe in the 1609 Quarto. The date that Shakespeare wrote this sonnet is not known for certain.

One scholar, Brents Stirling, in his revised ordering of the sonnets, argues that Sonnet 23 takes place in a "later phase" in the "poet-friendship relationship". In the timeline that Stirling describes, Sonnet 23 "celebrates renewal and rededication" of the relationship. In relation to Sonnet 107, Sonnet 23 is placed within the same "group" that Stirling creates.

As for the subject of Sonnet 23, most scholars have narrowed the identity of the "Fair Youth" down to two contenders: William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, and Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. One scholar, Katherine Duncan-Jones, argues that William Herbert is both the "Mr. W.H." of the dedication and the subject of sonnets 1-126. She cites Shakespeare's financial incentive for dedicating the Quarto to Herbert; the Earl's "reluctance to marry" and references to Sonnet 116 in his own writing are a few of her reasons for believing that he is also the fair youth. Scholar Kenneth Larsen also argues for Herbert, on the grounds of parallels between Sonnet 125 and events at the coronation of James I. Despite this, it has been noted that in the early 1590s, Wriothesley refused to marry as well, and Duncan-Jones acknowledges that sonnets written around the time of 1592-95 may have been originally addressed to Henry Wriothesley.

Although the sonnet tells the subject to read his poems and understand his love rather than rely on a performance, this directly contradicts Shakespeare's writing style within his plays, where he "presents the writing of love poetry in general, and sonnets in-particular, as ridiculous". Patrick Cheney also notes that Shakespeare's plays tends to emphasize "the superior effectiveness of performing an emotion rather than speaking about it." Within Sonnet 23, this is further complicated by the comparisons Shakespeare makes, first comparing himself to an actor and then his collection of poems to a play.

Sonnet 23 is considered an English or Shakespearean Sonnet. It contains 14 iambic pentameter lines. The rhyme scheme is ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. The form consists of three quatrains and a couplet.