For Thursday: Shakespeare The Sonnets

Read Sonnets 3, 9, 17, 18, 20, 23, 29, 30, 35, 36, 40, 42, 46 for class on Thursday. You can read more if you want, but I want to focus on these, and especially #s 18, 20, 23, and 35. But we can talk about any ones you choose in class, and of course you can write about whichever ones you want.

NOTE: How do you read a sonnet? Be sure to look over the handout I gave you, which should help you gain a little insight as to what a sonnet is, and why it works the way it does. Additionally, (a) read it out loud; this will help you hear the sonnet and pay attention to small details that are easily missed when skimming; and (b) a poem uses metaphors to change the way we see the world. How is Shakespeare using a metaphor to help us see a different aspect of love, relationships, doubt, jealousy, or betrayal?

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: In reading over these Sonnets, what kind of rough story emerges? If there were a play composed of just these sonnets, who would the characters be? What is their relationship? What happened when? Try to piece together anything you can based on what you’ve read.

Q2: 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.

Q3: de Sousa writes that “The English word ‘want’ conveniently conveys both meanings. If you want something, you are ‘in want of it’, which just means you don’t have it. So love is essentially a lack: it aspires to, or desires, what it does not possess” (25-26). How does ONE of the Sonnets seem to capture this sense of ‘desiring’ and ‘lacking’? Do you think the speaker can ever truly get what he wants in this relationship?

Q4: Should we give Shakespeare (or the narrator, if fictional) a “pass” for writing these sonnets, or is it evidence of bad behavior? In other words, is he trying to guilt, cajole, reason, or harass the lover into loving him? Where we might we see this in one or more of the poems? If we took love out of the equation, would these poems seem as beautiful and harmless?