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Over a brief span of eleven sonnets (76–86), the speaker periodically references a second poet who appears to be rivaling for the Fair Youth’s attention. This sequence opens with the speaker meditating on the repetitive nature of his own love poems, which seem to do little more that dress up the same old subject (i.e., the Fair Youth) in new words. After acknowledging “[how] oft have I invoked thee for my Muse” (Sonnet 78) and granting that the Fair Youth’s beauty “deserves the travail of a worthier pen” (Sonnet 79), the speaker turns his attention to a second poet who appears also to have taken the Fair Youth as his “Muse.” Evidently unhappy about this situation, the speaker frames the Rival Poet as a plagiarist who offers nothing of his own invention and simply copies “what in thee doth live” (Sonnet 79). But despite this initial desire to dismiss his rival, the speaker clearly worries that the other poet’s talent will succeed in luring the Fair Youth’s affections. He suggests as much in sonnet 80, and again in sonnet 85, where he laments that whereas he merely thinks “good thoughts” about his love object, “others write good words.”
Just as critics and readers alike have been tempted to associate the speaker with Shakespeare himself, they have also sought to link the Rival Poet to a real person. The most likely candidates put forward in the critical tradition include two of Shakespeare’s contemporaries, George Chapman and Christopher Marlowe. It should be noted, however, that these associations are based entirely on speculation and hence aren’t grounded firmly in fact. Even so, the speculation reflects the deep curiosity scholars continue to have about the origins of the figures presented in Shakespeare’s remarkable sonnet sequence. From another perspective, however, it may be worth linking the Rival Poet not to a concrete person but rather to an abstract concept. In the broader context of the sonnet sequence, the Rival Poet stands as a thematic heir to the concept of time. Indeed, time is the main source of the speaker’s worry prior to the Rival Poet’s appearance. In threatening to steal away the Fair Youth by destroying his beauty, time is arguably the speaker’s greatest rival. From this perspective, it’s possible to interpret the Rival Poet’s brief appearance in the sequence as a temporary diversion from the speaker’s prevailing concern about time.
