Shakespeare Fans discussion

I can't find a topic for the Sonnets - may I start one?

I'm getting to know them in a real way for the first time. I began by dipping in at random, but one day got caught up in the story - I had no idea how much they follow on from each other, or that last lines lead into first lines of the next. I'll have to read them consecutively from the beginning.

And they can be very different when laid out as a story. As a for instance: I always disliked that famous one, 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds/Admit impediments... Then I met it in sequence, in context, and see what he's doing with the marriage service; it's terribly bold of him, isn't it, like his snatches of blasphemy, in 105: Let not my love be called idolatry, or a casual Bible-use in the one I'm up to, 121, where he declares No, I am that I am, which is how God defines himself (quick Google consult) yes, when Moses asks him who he is exactly.

Isn't this on the outrageous side? I guess Marlowe can blaspheme.

If you like the intertwined nature of these, you should check out Mary Wroth's corona (Crown of Sonnets dedicated to Love). early 1600s. Wow.

Leslie wrote: "If you like the intertwined nature of these, you should check out Mary Wroth's corona (Crown of Sonnets dedicated to Love). early 1600s. Wow."

I'll do that, Leslie. I hadn't heard of these.

Bryn, I wasn't aware of the connection to Moses and God in that "I am that I am." Thanks for pointing it out.

Yahweh can also be translated as "I am who am." Beautiful.

Leslie wrote: "Yahweh can also be translated as "I am who am." Beautiful."

I'd forgotten the name means that. Yes:
And Moses said unto God... The children of Israel shall say unto me, What is his name? What shall I say unto them?
And God said unto Moses, I am that I am: and thou shalt say unto the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me to you.
-- which is an etymology of YHWH, Yahweh. And a pun, which is up Shakespeare's street.

Well, Leslie and Bryn, this is interesting. Beautiful, too.

I will look into making room for reading The Sonnets...maybe by July. I've enjoyed following along here on these posts...

I love the sonnets. Yup I love the "Let not my love be called idolatry" as well. It seems that Shakespeare believes his love is near to blasphemy. "Since all alike my songs and praises be/to one, of one, still such and ever so".

I also love the sonnet "Not marble, nor the gilded monument/of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme". I like the sense of immortality in it.

He makes a religion of his love? They did a bit of that in the high age of Courtly Love. I've been startled by how far they went that way, in a religious age, so I guess he has a traditon behind him.

I don't know if this helps. My studies of the sonnets have told me that a significant number of the sonnets were to, for, or about two particular people in Shakespeare's life, the so-called "Fair Youth" of the early sonnets, and the "Dark Lady" of the latter sonnets. Speculation is that the Fair youth was the Earl of Southhampton who was Shakespeare's patron--the poems have been interpreted by some as sexual, others as platonic--The famous "Let me not to the marriage of true minds", and "shall I compare thee?" poems are from this group. The Dark Lady sonnets are most assuredly sexual, and definitely have a clear story to them--she is not faithful to Will.

For the guy, the Arden 3rd edition settles on the Earl of Pembroke. I found the argument quite persuasive, in that Pembroke liked to be faintly outrageous: flirted with the king - though he chased women too, while he dodged his marriage obligations. And he made a thing of his friendships for people of the stage, who were meant to be beneath him - exhibited his grief at Burbage's death.

To have these Sonnets associated with him is... odd, but the Arden 3rd says he courted such flouting of conventions and encouraged an unusual intimacy of behaviour.

Yes, there are several contenders for Shakespeare's Fair Youth, and your argument has much merit, I think. There have been arguments I've read that Shakespeare never agreed to have the sonnets published at all.

The Arden - again, sorry (it's not that I think she's right about everything) - tackles that one, whether Sh. intended to have them published, and comes down with a definite yes, he did, he published openly.

In the tenth doctor, "Doctor Who" episode Dr. Martha Jones, the Doctor's companion, is identified as the Dark Lady...

I've read that there is evidence that she was a madame.(I'm switching subjects, here. This time not goofing.)

Anthony Burgess has a lot of fun with Shakespeare's Dark Lady --gives her a name and all, makes her from the islands,in his book Nothing Like the Sun, a fictional biography of Shakespeare's life that I love even more than A Clockwork Orange. And to support your idea in the sonnets, Will himself calls her, in sonnet 135 She "who's will is large and spacious"--implying it accomodates more than one.

Bryn, I think the Sonnets are too large a subject for a single thread. Had you thought of posting a few them singly in "Group Readings" with a brief intro of your own, and try and generate some discussion? There was for example a very lively discussion of 116 (mentioned several times above) in goodreads' constant reader group three years ago,

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

The best thing I know of written on the sonnets is L.C. Knight's Shakespeare's Sonnets published in Explorations. Only 20 pages, but packed with understanding. The first sentence sets the theme,

"That there is so little genuine criticism in the terrifying number of books and essays on Shakespeare's Sonnets can only be partly accounted for by the superior attractiveness of gossip."

Thanks for digging up that old thread for us. Wish I'd been there. I'll think about ways to post and discuss.

I've been afraid to go near the criticism, in the Sonnets' case. Anyway I want to get a feel for them first, just me and the Sonnets - partly out of suspicion of Sonnet criticism. I'll hunt down the L.C. Knight. Googling tells me he detaches them from biography, and he doesn't see them as a unified sequence - at least not written that way. I've seen Helen Vendler The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets often recommended. Opinions on that one, or other suggestions for criticism? I quarrel with the footnotes in Katherine Duncan-Jones' Arden 3rd - though I appreciate what she has done for the Sonnets with her introduction - and have moved to a plain text copy, not to be distracted by argument with the notes.

Very roughly and thus far, I've been struck by two things - perhaps because these are things I didn't expect. First, the drama and even storyline; and second the voice. I hesitate to mention the voice - I don't claim it's Shakespeare's. I understand people took on a voice and an imaginary identity in which to write first-person sonnet sequences. But the first-person of the Sonnets, whatever his relationship to the writer, has been a real find for me. And that isn't separate from the dramatic aspect: I hadn't thought to find them so readable-aloud, like the speeches, with such expression in the voice. I stumbled on this in the Rival Poet section, where the fluctuation of his emotions, the vivid personality on display, made me feel I was standing in a room next to... not Shakespeare, but the I. It's a private voice, the I, you're closeted with him. Sulky in one line, noble in the next, or noble on the surface while sulky underneath: the voice, the I, I found very likeable, in his struggles to be magnanimous or lofty and his fallings-short that peep out of the line, very much ill-disguised.

Also I didn't know how witty, gently humorous or otherwise funny they were - although how they can fail to be...? It is Shakespeare.

My favourite sonnet by Shakespeare would have to be Sonnet 145. I believe it's the one he wrote for his wife , Anne Hathaway (not the actress, aha). Also, the fact there is a possible pun of a line saying 'hate away' sounding similar to Hathaway. All in all though, the sonnet is beautiful. Bittersweet, really. A man so in love with a women... and fear of her hating him whenever she claims to hate something.

Sorry to be late to this group and string, but wanted to mention an event I went to this past weekend. Kristen Linklater, who is a world famous teacher of actors, concentrating on breathing methods and the use of the body, gave a small show featuring about 20 of the sonnetts. For me it just drove home yet again that Shakespeare is meant to be heard, not just read. New life as given even to sonnets i knew by heart. She is putting out a CD that features her reading the sonnets, and has some Korean flute music mixed in. Not a huge fan of the music, but the CD is worth it to her her voice these poems.