Critics have been unsuccessful at pinpointing the exact identity of Mr. W.H. Douglas Trevor points out that the young boy mentioned in the sonnets may not be a specific person: "Scholars puzzled over the identity of the speaker's male friend, debating whether or not he is one male or a composite, rooted in real life or a purely literary conjuring." Scholars have developed a few possibilities for the identity of Mr. W.H., such as William Herbert and Henry Wriothesley. Critics have also wondered about the woman who came between Shakespeare and the boy: "And of course there is the dark lady, identified alternatively as a nameless aristocrat, a commoner, Queen Elizabeth, her maid of honor Mary Fitton, the London prostitute Lucy Negro, the poet Aemilia Lanyer, and so on."