First and final things. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 145, and his Epitaph

Abstract - This paper examines certain aspects of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 145, and the epitaph inscribed on his grave in Stratford-upon-Avon, arguably the first and the last poems composed by the dramatist. Although the grave is often described as being anonymous, it is suggested that Shakespeare does name himself obliquely in his epitaph, and that there is an analogy between the manner in which he does so and the way in which he indirectly names Anne Hathaway in a sonnet that may well record an episode, whether real or imagined, in the history of their courtship