| William Shakespeare's most enigmatic sonnets leave us with enduring charm and mystery, encouraging the following generations to dig up over and over again. The present study, taking the tendency of literary theory as a thread together with the context of cultural traditions and theory of poetry, endeavours to scrutinize the Sonnets to construct its poetics whose methods are imitation and representation, and its contents are Truth, Kindness and Beauty, teaching and delight. The recount of Truth, Kindness and Beauty in Shakespeare's Sonnets is in accordance with the Platonic triad of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty, which demonstrates Platonism's deep impact upon the Sonnets; at the same time, such a golden world set up by the poet brings readers instruction and delight.Introduction gives a brief sketch of the Sonnets from the first mention of Shakespeare's "sugared sonnets" by Francis Meres (1565-1647) to the21st century's criticism. For four hundred years, almost every critical school has attempted to touch upon them; yet, there is no study to construct poetics of the Sonnets based on a systematic analysis of the profound thoughts melted into them. The present study attempts to probe into the Sonnets to make a more comprehensive understanding of them and display the poet's distinctive aesthetic world. The poetics of the Sonnets the present study explores is not the term of knowledge of poetry in its narrow sense, but the process of the development of the Sonnets' motif-truth, kindness, and beauty, in a philosophical sense.The main body of the present study is divided into the following four chapters:The first chapter aims to map the position of Shakespeare's Sonnets in the context of literary theories and both its indebtedness to the tradition and its innovativeness from the two diachronic and synchronic views, and examines Shakespeare's Sonnets related to the three theories from three aspects:the mirror and mimetic theories, teaching and delight and pragmatic theories, and the lamp and expressive theories. And at the same time, this chapter indicates that the three theories (mimetic, pragmatic, and expressive theory) permeate through the Sonnets, which embodies, at different levels, the poet's pursuit of Truth, Kindness and Beauty. Therefore, Shakespeare's comprehensive and insightful art of poetry, like a carefully painted canvas, is set before us. Truth, Kindness, and Beauty, which endow this sonnet sequence with value and significance, are about the theory of knowledge, morality, and aesthetics, in all of which Shakespeare has the great art.Chapter two investigates the poetic essence of Truth and its function in the poetics. This chapter puts forward that in the Sonnets, Truth is basic and primary with both Kindness and Beauty subordinate to it; without Truth, let alone the other two. A world of Truth produces delightful instruction, which is of benefit to readers and social harmony. Truth is represented in the Sonnets in several aspects:firstly, Truth is embodied in loyalty, faithfulness and fidelity to affection; secondly, Truth is an imitation of creating and making in the art of poetry; thirdly, Truth refers to the Idea of Truth and the persistence in seeking it. Furthermore, the inseparable relation between Truth and Beauty is articulated. How Truth is to be related to teaching and delight which is a granted convention of theory of poetry is thrown light on in the last part of this chapter.Chapter three centers on another argument of the Sonnets-Kindness, and expatiates upon its connotative and denotative meanings. The poet's strenuous dedication to making inquiry of Kindness delivers a magnificent moral myth. In the Sonnets, the meanings of Kindness are as follows:first, kindness, gentleness, graciousness, and noble worth are embodied in the young man; then, the poet's aspiration for Kindness itself is a sort of virtue; lastly, the poet wrestles to immortalize beauty by any means, which is an exalted sense of vocation and a great virtuous action beyond personal interests. This persistent pursuit of immortal beauty leads to Plato's absolute beauty. In this sense, Kindness is a ladder to acquire Beauty."Teaching," obviously, suggests education and instruction. The qualities of constancy, self-control, benevolence, and the great virtue to eternalize beauty in the Sonnets are various forms of Kindness, from which we can draw a conclusion that Kindness is, being the elevated state of teaching both in content and in form, another pattern of teaching.Chapter four dwells upon how the poet expresses his understanding of Beauty by means of different ways. Beauty in the Sonnets is displayed in two dimensions:the physical dimension and the spiritual dimension. The former refers to the beauty of body and pleasure derived from desire, and the latter indicates emotional enjoyment beyond sensual desire and spiritual delight in the pursuit of its perfection. The two dimensions are embodied in the two sonnet groups, the Young Man and Dark Lady. Physically, both the young man and the dark lady have the unsurpassed or unconventional beauty. What's more, the young man is made as the archetype of all beauty, and its spirituality is turned out. Ingeniously, the two patterns of beauty are melted into a harmonious union hermaphrodite, which is still a metaphor of the young man, Plato's immortal beauty. From the physical beauty to the spiritual one, similar to Plato's ladder of beauty, is an ascent of beauty; at the same time, this beauty, pleasing not only the sight but also the mind, is the fountain of delight. The beautiful is what pleases every one, just as the good is what every one desires. This chapter points out that how Shakespeare deals with Beauty, in the context of century theme of "carpe diem," is his strenuous seeking of spirituality and immortality. In addition, apart from Truth and Kindness being representation of Beauty of the Sonnets, its contents of beauty are such essential parts as themes of eternity, time, harmony, one and many, anti-Petrarch and so forth.The conclusion, combining with the theory of poetry in the Renaissance, sums up that Shakespeare's Sonnets, taking Truth, Kindness, and Beauty as a leading thread, based on the nourished traditions but different from them by creative imitation, are Platonic, instructive, attractive, and romantic. Shakespeare, as a most talented poet, describes the essential truth, kindness, and beauty of things to aim at the universal and ideal, thus affecting the minds of men in the direction of excellence and beauty. Shakespeare's Sonnets'creative imitation of the traditions and representation of the progression of the mental activity do reveal the poet's poetics of the Mirror and the Lamp. Both the external and internal artistic skills conduct the three arguments of Truth, Kindness, and Beauty in an intensive and thorough way. At the same time, this part points out that the way of this study on the Sonnets is probably better to trace back what Shakespeare and the Sonnets really are than merely trying to discover the so-called historical facts.
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