While they are some of the most well-known sonnets written in English today, the first edition of Shakespeare’s sonnets was published at a time when sonnets were declining in popularity. Writing for the Folger Library’s Shakespeare Documented, Erin A. McCarthy elaborates on this: “The 1590s were the peak of the sonnet vogue in England: 20 first edition sonnet books appeared between 1590 and 1599. While some sonnet sequences were printed or reprinted during the seventeenth century, by 1609, the form was a bit dated.” English sonnet sequences of the 16th century included Philip Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella, published in 1591, and Edmund Spenser’s Amoretti, published in 1595. However, some of Shakespeare’s sonnets, such as “Sonnet 138,” were published in anthologies and shared in private before the 1600s.

The sonnet form, which originated in Italy, gained the interest of English poets after Thomas Wyatt translated Petrarch’s sonnets in the anthology called Tottel’s Miscellany. Francesco Petrarch is credited with popularizing the sonnet form in Italy in the 1300s. Petrarch’s Italian form of the sonetto, which means “little song” in Italian, differs from the English forms. It contains an octave and a sestet—a section of eight lines followed by a section of six lines after a volta, or a turn in the direction of thought.