L'amour et la mort dans les sonnets de Shakespeare

In 1609 Thomas Thorpe published, under the title shakespeare'S sonnets, a collection of 154 sonnets written by William shakespeare. Most of these poems were probably written in 1597 though the earliest ones could have been composed as early as 1593. sonnets cycles were a traditional genre of the time, in England sir Philip Sidney preceded shakespeare with his Elizabethan sonnets cycle. The form of the sonnet itself was one of the central conventions of poetry. Though the Shakespearean sonnet appears slightly different to the more traditional « Italian sonnet » used, for instance, by the French Pléaide.

shakespeare chose to build his sonnet, following Sidney, of three quatrains and a final couplet, being a pointe. If the shape and structure of this collection insert it in various literary traditions of the Time, its themes also correspond to certain standards of the Renaissance. Indeed, the cycle is haunted by the topoï of Love and Death, topoï of which the late XVIth century and early XVIIth provide a profusion of illustrations. Through painting, poetry or theater, both these themes seem to have cast their shadows on the period. Vanities, Memento Mori, Dances of Death, Petrarchan poetry, Courtier poetry; numerous are the genres and art traditions that illustrate them. In the sonnets, Death appears at the center of a spiritual reflection lead by the Poet. He fears Time and decay he tries to master with his verse.
How does shakespeare in the sonnets play with literary topoï and conventions, being altogether a poet of his Time and surprisingly modern, to lead a deep spiritual reflection which eventually brought him to develop a poetic vision of the world and human nature that transcend Death and Time?