Sure, especially a known bisexual who might be coming on to you, but you don't want to engage. All speculation, but a perfectly valid reading.Originally Posted by kelby_lake
Agreed. I read purpose as 'desire' and 'function'.
He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot. ~ Douglas Adams
Ah, I see. So you read the poem as Shakespeare trying to dissuade the youth and convince him to live a 'normal' life such as the procreational sonnets encourage? I can certainly see how it could be read like that but I think there is still an element of desire on the narrator's part: 'the master mistress of my passion.' It looks like the narrator's doing the whole 'martyr for love' thing because there's a few sonnets where the narrator says that he can't make his love public.
Not exactly, more that the writer isn't interested in bedding down with the youth although he cares deeply for him. Some have suggested a timeline of after the death of young Hamnet Shakespeare for the writing of the sonnets. Perhaps the author is projecting his former love and care for his son onto his subject.
He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot. ~ Douglas Adams
Hmmmm...possibly. But there's a lot in the sonnets about 'unmentionable' love so I'm pretty sure there's some sort of romance there, even if it's a pure one. There's also a lot about the man being like a woman, which seems irrelevant to the replacement of his son. Perhaps it's a love affair with the writer's own youth.
Indeed, the Dark Lady section is more physical in tone but it's also a very cynical section. Whatever the narrator's getting off her/from her, it never has the intensity of the early sonnets of the Fair Youth section. So perhaps it's not so much boy vs. woman as innocent love vs. 'adult' love, which creeps into parts of the Fair Youth sequence, like when the FY is 'cheating' on the narrator with the DL. The narrator slowly sees that although his relationship with the Dark Lady is not romantic, it is not a bad or wrong sort of love. The romantic delusions with the Fair Youth are more harmful.
People, Henry Wriothesley was not Shakespeare's cousin, he was his patron. He was the Earl of Southampton, the same person that Shakespeare dedicated his two long narrative poems to. So, there was no filial love really!
*M.e.m.e.n.t.o M.o.r.i*
Thanks for clearing that up Darkprincess
My favourite is either 66 (I love all of the "And"s and often imitate that aspect of the poem in my own sonnets) or 53. But the entire sequence is so amazing and mysterious. We do not know if the poem's are as personal as they appear, if Shakespeare is himself the speaker. We do not know if Shakespeare authored the dedication to Mr. W. H. or if it the handiwork of the publisher. How can we understand that there was but one printing only of the sonnets and then they vanished from print for decades. So much is presumed about the poems and their origin/significance.
My favourite reading is by Alex Jennings, although I love Simon Callow's as well. Sir John Gielgud's dramatic readings can be delightful but I need to be in the mood for them. A very interesting vocal interpretation may be found on the cd accompanying Helen Vendler's The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets, my personal favourite study. One of my literary passions is to devour literary studies of the sonnets that discuss their form, their language, do they "prove" that Will was queer, do they prove that Will was Oxford, &c &c.
"I never can be tied to raw, new things." --H. P. Lovecraft
I just searched YouTube for people reading Shakespeare's sonnets. The link below is to sonnet 130 by Alan Rickman:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP06F0yynic
I haven't listened to enough of these to have a definite opinion on whether this is good or not, but the guy does have a deep voice and clearly enunciates the words.
Not quite so fast please. Patron, almost certainly, but related as well. Not first cousins, but cousins still.
He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot. ~ Douglas Adams
wow where did you get this xman?
When I couldn't find the reference on my bookshelf I just started Googling. I don't know who the guy/gal is or what their belief/agenda might be, but they were nice enough to provide the family tree. I knew it had to be out there somewhere because I'd either read it before or am delusional. The good news is that the delusions are held at bay so far.
He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot. ~ Douglas Adams
Wow, that's impressive!! Alright, I take my words back
Though, I still don't think the kind of love Shakespeare is celebrating in the sonnets is filial, it's bordering on obsessive!
*M.e.m.e.n.t.o M.o.r.i*
I agree, I think there is definitely serious man-love going on between the writer and the "fair youth".
Having spent many an hour on these poems, I find them by far the most fascinating of Shakespeare's works. There is some glorious poetry (and some that is not). But it is the extra dimensions of parallel meanings and autobiography - only really appreciable if one absorbs the collection in its entirety - which makes them unique.
Take the beautiful Sonnet 73, mentioned above. Read in isolation, who would realise that this is also a wonderfully witty plea for a good redundancy package?!
Those interested in a more detailed development of this topic will find it at http://BiographyinSonnets.aspx
Last edited by iansteere; 11-10-2011 at 02:43 PM. Reason: wrong url
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