Remember, we're returning to Shakespeare's Sonnets for one week before we plunge back into two Tragedies (Othello and Antony and Cleopatra). These poems pick up roughly where we left off, but they detail the very end of the poet's relationship with the young man, and the start of a new one with the 'dark lady.'
Read the following Sonnets: 110, 116, 121, 126, 127, 129, 130
Answer TWO of the following, or ONE with a longer responses, that might combine one or more of the questions below:
Q1: How is the poet trying to justify himself and/or hs role in the relationship to the young man in these last poems (110-126)? Likewise, what is he accusing the young man of? Why is it clearly his fault?
Q2: Sonnet 126 is the end of the road for the poet and the young man. How might this poem hearken back to the very first Sonnets in the series? Also, despite this echoing, what makes it unique in the entire sequence? In other words, what does it do that we've never seen before?
Q3: What is the biggest difference between the young man sonnets and the dark lady sonnets? What about the language, ideas, metaphors, or tone is most distinct in Sonnets 127-130?
Q4: Sonnet 130 is one of the most famous sonnets ever written, and certainly the most famous in this series, along with #s 18, 116, and 138. What makes this poem so memorable and quotable? How might it contrast with a similar love poem like 18? How might is also suggest how the poet has changed in the interval?
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