ALBANY — Interested in puzzles and mysteries? So is Peter Jensen, an English instructor and a Shakespearean scholar at Linn-Benton Community College whose puzzles revolve around Shakespeare’s sonnets.

In spring 2001, Jensen read a book about codes used during the Elizabethan era. The two main types were substitution codes (where one word, number or symbol is used for a name or another word) and transposition codes (where one word’s letters are mixed to form another name or word).

Jensen wanted to try this on the sonnets.

“I have always thought that Shakespeare’s sonnets were autobiographical,” he said.

When he started to read the sonnets with the knowledge of codes, names and events started to pop out. He wrote them down as he went and eventually self-published two books with his findings: “Secrets of the Sonnets” and “Learn to Hear with Your Eyes.”

In addition to Shakespeare, there are three main characters in the sonnets: the young lord, the dark lady and the rival poet. Jensen wanted to find out who they were.

His search led him to believe that the young lord was Henry Wriothesley (pronounced Risley), the third Earl of Southampton; the dark lady was Aemilia Bessano, the daughter of the royal musician and the first woman to publish a book of poetry; and the rival poet was Christopher Marlowe, spy, poet and good friend of Shakespeare.

“I probably have close to 1,000 names that I have found who were connected to Shakespeare,” Jensen said. “And I am still not done.”

Though Jensen has these theories, he does not believe his ideas are solid proof of Shake- speare’s life.

“If you decode it wrong, then you get it wrong,” Jensen said. “I am not saying that I have it all right.”

He added that Shakespeare was not the only person in his time period to use codes.

He lists Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Thomas Wyatt as some of the others who used codes during the Renaissance period.

Now that he has discovered all of these new people in Shakespeare’s life, Jensen is working on publishing a novel titled “Shakespeare’s Lovers.”

Jensen’s books are available at the Albany Public Library, the LBCC Library and online at amazon.com.