Identifying the Rival Poet from Shakespeare's Sonnets One of the intriguing aspects of Shakespeare's Sonnets is the identity of the main characters within them, the Young Man, the Dark Lady, and the Rival Poet . Nowhere are these people explicitly identified, and their anonymity has generated much debate about who these people might have been. The content of the Sonnets referring to these people, however, shows beyond doubt that they were indeed real people. The Rival Poet was a cause of evident anxiety for Shakespeare. A poet depended on patronage to fund the publication of his works, so a rival represents a real threat of loss of income through loss of patronage, as well as professional and personal feelings of rejection, loss of esteem, and a competitor seen instead to gain favor of themselves. The sonnets referring to the rival Poet appear to contain sufficient data to permit the identification of the rival: The rival verse-writing Poet is first mentioned in Sonnet 21: "So it is not with me as with that muse, stirred by a beauty painted for his verses" and goes on to say, "Making a pair of proud comparison" This part of the sonnet is open to several interpretations, but may refer explicitly to George Chapman's use of rhyming English couplets in his epic translation of the Odysseys of Homer: "The Gods sit in council, to recall Odysseus from the bondage of Calypso, and thus order their high pleasures: Gray Pallas to Telemachus (in Ithaca) his address; to correlate with Sonnet 21: "Let the sky itself use for ornament" The fin... in the center of the paper... of the Sonnets, there was a group of poets called The School of Night, also called The School of Atheism in a 1592 reference, which was led by Raleigh and included Marlowe and Chapman. This group is apparently parodied in Love's Labors Lost: King: "Black is the badge of hell, the hue of the dungeons and the school of the night and the crest of beauty becomes well heaven." Chapman also wrote a verse entitled The Shadow of Night whose title and subject matter fit well with Chapman's involvement with this group. Finally, George Chapman wrote verses dedicated to the Earl of Southampton who was also Shakespeare's patron. While the identity of the rival poet is not conclusive, the material within the rival poet's sonnets and George Chapman's contemporary activity, in my opinion, converges to indicate that George Chapman is the man.