The Manuscript Versions of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 2: A Reassessment
Purificación Ribes Traver · SCRIPTA Revista Internacional de Literatura i Cultura Medieval i Moderna · 2025
The present article focuses on the manuscript versions of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 2 presentin handwritten miscellanies from the second quarter of the Seventeenth century. A thoroughreassessment of the textual nature of the high number of witnesses that have come down to us hasbeen undertaken by newly transcribing and collating all the extant manuscripts, as well as revisingthe conclusions reached by previous editors and scholars on the presumable origin of these texts.The arguments posed by those who regard these manuscripts as early drafts of Shakespeare’s1609 Quarto, and the reasons alleged by those who contend that they are the product of therevision undertaken by educated compilers from the universities and the Inns of Court have beenreviewed in the light of the new transcriptions and collations, that take their original spelling andpunctuation into account, and look into the nature of their variant readings within the context ofthe different texts.