ABSTRACT
The most important patron was Maecenas, whose name is known used to indicate enlightened patronage. In the history of English literature, Chaucer, Gower, Lydgate, and Spenser had all enjoyed royal or aristocratic patronage. Alistair Fox has shown how writers in the 1590s complained that they were no longer receiving the patronage which they "they thought they deserved and once would have had a right to expect. Paul Voss has shown that to offset the decline in aristocratic patronage in the 1590s, stationers began to promote their publications directly to the buying public. William Shakespeare sonnets were first published by Thomas Thorpe in 1609. The Most commentators believe that Shakespeare wrote his sonnets in the early 1590s when they were in vogue. Almost all modern biographers of Shakespeare identify Southampton as the 'fair youth' against the prevailing opinion of editors of the sonnets, who tend to prefer Pembroke.
