Rare Handwritten Shakespeare Sonnet Found in Oxford Library

A rare handwritten copy of Shakespeare's Sonnet 116 has been found in Oxford University’s Bodleian Library. The copy of a musical adaptation of Shakespeare's Sonnet 116 was previously undocumented, becomingonly the second handwritten copy known to scholars. The newly-discovered artifact "reads as a political love song" during England's Civil Wars.

The poem was found by English professor Leah Veronese in a 17th-century collection of texts while doing research. Gizmodo reports that it was found within a manuscript of miscellaneous texts compiled by Elias Ashmole, who had founded Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology. Ashmole was also a loyal Royalist during England’s Civil Wars.

“This exciting discovery shows that centuries of searching for evidence about Shakespeare and his early reception hasn’t exhausted the archives,” says University of Oxford Shakespeare studies professor Emma Smith.

While stumbling upon the sonnet, Veronese was initially confused by what was found. 

“As I was leafing through the manuscript, the poem struck me as an odd version of Sonnet 116,” Veronese shared. While checking the description of the manuscript, “the poem was described, not inaccurately, as ‘on constancy in love’ – but it doesn’t mention Shakespeare.”

The new discovery is a handwritten copy of an adaptation that 17th-century English songwriter Henry Lawes had set to music. Aside from the new beginning, it includes a different ending and extra lines.

While it seemed like lines were added to simply expand the song, Veronese hypothesizes that the different version was politically charged. Veronese interprets it as a call for religious and political loyalty amid unrest.

The recently-discovered version reads: "Self blinding error seize all those minds / Who with false appellations call that love / Which alters when it alterations finds."

Shakespeare's original version reads: "Let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit impediments; love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds."

“I think the combination of the additional first line ‘Self-blinding error seize those minds’ and absence of Shakespeare from the original catalogue description may be the reason why this poem has passed un-noticed as a copy of Sonnet 116 all these years,” Veronese continued to explain.

When the manuscript was initially cataloged by William Henry Black in the 19th Century, Veronese thinks that he "he may not have read past the opening lines" of the poem and did not realize that it was a different version.