For Tuesday: Shakespeare, The Sonnets (see below)

Read #’s 116, 121, 126, 127, 129, 130, 135, 138, 144, 145, 147, and 152.

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: Sonnet 126 is clearly addressed to the young man (“O thou, my lovely boy”) whereas Sonnet 127 is addressed to a woman (“Therefore my  mistress’ eyes”). Most critics see this as the final farewell to his lover, and Sonnet 127 as the beginning (or the acknowledgment) as a new relationship. Beside the change in addressee, is there any hint in 126 itself that there is a final break? A leave-taking? Do sonnets 116 and 121 help us see this as well?

Q2: The Shakespeare scholar Stanley Wells has argued that Shakespeare views men as ideals (or platonic beings) and women as human beings (or sexual creatures). How do Sonnets 127-152 seem to support this argument? How might his relationship with the mistress be more “human” and more “real” than that with the young man?

Q3: We read Sonnets 129 and 138 in Love: A Very Short Introduction before encountering them in the context of the surrounding sonnets. How does reading them as part of a series, responding to and communicating with Sonnets 127, 130, 135, and 144 change how we read them? In other words, what can you only see when you read these poems as a series rather than a single poem?

Q4: Sonnet 145 is widely considered to be a much earlier sonnet, since it is simpler (the poetry/metaphors are much less sophisticated) and directly puns on his wife’s name: Hathaway. If this is an unique look at his relationship with his wife, how does it contrast with his relationship with his mistress—Sonnet 135, perhaps? Why might he have seen these women differently? Does it have anything to do with de Sousa’s ideas of “the altruist’s dilemma”?

For Thursday: de Sousa, Love: A Very Short Introduction, Chapter 3 "Desire"

For Thursday's class, please read Chapter 3 "Desire" from Love: A Very Short Introduction. I won't give you any questions this time, but we will do a short in-class writing when you arrive in class. Here are some ideas to guide you, any one of which I might pull from in our writing:

* What is "operant conditioning" and how does it play into Sonnet 129?
 
* de Sousa quotes the comedian Groucho Marx who said, "I would never join any club that would have me as a member." How does this sentiment pervade many of Shakepseare's Sonnets? Which ones?

* How does the concept of "reward" help perpetuate the cycle of desire and pleasure? If you got rewarded at the end of a pursuit, why would the cycle repeat just as strong as before? Would reward necessarily end the cycle?

* What is the "altruist's dilemma," and why might that play into the experience of "lying" in Shakespeare's Sonnet 138? 

*  Related to the above, why would a Court of Love in 1176 rule that love is incompatible in marriage? What does marriage--or any kind of formal union--abolish that is essential (they would argue) to the true condition of love and romance?

* According to de Sousa, why is love like stepping on a nail? How are love and pain similar concepts? In other words, why are causes and reasons completely different concepts that we often conflate? Why according to de Sousa is love necessarily "reason-free"?

For Tuesday: Shakespeare, The Sonnets (see below)

NOTE: The Paper #1 assignment is posted BELOW this one if you missed class on Thursday, or lost your hard copy. 

Read Sonnets 55, 59, 62, 71, 73,80, 86, 87, 91, 94, 106, 110

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: Do you see more evidence in these sonnets of the lover's identity? Is he a fellow actor? A gentleman? Another poet? An older man? Younger? Where do we find hints of who this person is, and why his identity (as well as his sex) might make their relationship a difficult one to pursue?

Q2: In some of the earlier sonnets, we saw evidence of a love triangle between the poet, his lover, and his mistress. Now we see a fourth person enter the picture: who could this person be, and why does he pose a significant threat to the poet?(Hint: Sonnets 80, 86)

Q3: Repeating this question from the last set of questions: discuss a single line or even a word in ONE Sonnet that seems to change the meaning of the entire poem. This could be a word/line you don’t understand (or needed the help of the notes to understand); or it could be a word/line that just have multiple meanings and could be read in different ways. Explain how the word/line works in the context of the poem.

Q4: Since these poems are believed by some to be autobiographical, or confessional in nature, do we get a sense of Shakespeare’s personal philosophy or beliefs in these poems? What does he think is moral or ethical? Good and worthy? Bad and shameful? Does he strike you as judgmental or compassionate? Proud or humble? Introverted or extroverted? Etc.

Paper #1: He Said/(S)he Said

“For love is not easily moderated. In the guise of limerence, it moves us to extremes of both feeling and behaviour. There is a hint, perhaps, that love is inherently a state of unbalance—disruptive and perhaps even unhealthy” (de Sousa, Ch.2).

RESPONSE: For this paper, I want you to find two sonnets that seem to create a “he said/she said” dynamic (or he/he or she/she). That is, a poem that sounds like it is somehow responding to another poem, either by answering it, denying it, expanding upon it, or clarifying it. Imagine that the sonnets are spoken by two different lovers, and together, they create a snapshot of a relationship. What do they say about the nature of love? How are they trying to woo or flatter each other? What are they arguing about? How has one betrayed the other? What secrets does one keep from the other? How does one know the other one truly loves him/her? What’s going right—or what went wrong?

REQUIREMENTS: I want you to do two things in this paper: (a) close read the two poems to show us how they connect and sketch out the back-and-forth of a real relationship; and (b) quote a passage or two from de Sousa’s book to aid your discussion. Use his ideas to help you see a connection between the sonnets, or help unravel the relationship buried in the language of the sonnets. Be sure to quote a passage and explain it—show how it connects to the sonnets in question. Don’t just say “this reminds me of Chapter 2 in de Sousa’s book, because it says the same thing.” Be specific and help us see and understand how you read the poems.

MLA CITATION: Remember to following MLA in-text citation rules, and introduce quotations in your paper like so:

In Sonnet 1, Lover #1 says that “thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,/Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel” (5-6) OR (3): either line numbers of the page number in your edition of The Sonnets.

NOTE: Be sure, also, to respond to quotations—don’t quote a passage and move on. Explain why you quoted it or how you read it. As a writer, you’re the tour guide and the teacher—you have to guide us through the poem. Don’t assume that the reader gets it or even understands the poetry.

LENGTH: At least 3-4 pages double spaced, along with a Works Cited page.

DUE:  In-class on Thursday, February 7^th (in two weeks)