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”?
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