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1. The "personal nature" of the sonnets.To do this well, we'd have to sit down with the sonnets and
discuss them in detail. However, let's take just one, # 121.'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed
When not to be receives reproach of being,
And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed
Not by our feeling but by others' seeing.
For why should others' false adulterate eyes
Give salutation to my sportive blood?
Or on my frailties why are frailer spies
Which in their wills count bad what I count good?[What's being referred to here? We don't know, although
the writer evidently does. Whose "false adulterate eyes"
have spied on him? Where? How? What about him is being
counted bad that he counts good? What "frailties"? The defensive
anger about his "sportive blood" suggests embarassment at being
caught out doing something sexual, but we can only guess what.]No, I am that I am, and they that level
At my abuses reckon up their own;
I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;
By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown,
Unless this gneral evil they maintain:
All men are bad and in their badness reign.[Who are "they" that level at which of his "abuses"? What
happened? Is this mere "fiction?" If so, it's fatally vague!
More vagueness: He's different in his "abuses" than others:
"I may be straight though they themselves be bevel." What on
earth can this mean? If this is a fictional character speaking,
the writer needs to flesh him/her out. But if we suppose it's
a statement about Sh's bisexuality/homosexuality, which many
other sonnets, eg # 20, make apparent (yes, an act of interpretation)
then it makes sense. It's "personal" because he has no need to spell
out something embarrassing which he knows full well.Who is the intended reader of these words? Someone who already
knows of the events referred to.Sh's defiance is breathtakingly personal and arrogant too:
"No, I am that I am!" God himself. And then he gives his critics
the poetic finger, as only Sh can: "By their rank thoughts my
deeds must not be shown." What rank thoughts? Who said what?
What deeds? As fiction this is a disaster. As a personal statement,
once our "interpretation" fills in the blanks, it is full of driving power.And then the exit line: I may be "bad," but so are all of you!
This is just one example. The vast majority of the sonnets could
be glossed in the same way.]2. Non publication. Obviously a complex issue when it comes to
the plays. But curiously his admirers never published the sonnets
when they did the plays, why? How come Sh's "sugared sonnets"
were privately circulated in MS among his acquaintances? How come
it fell to the semiliterate Thomas Thorpe, and what's the significance
of that nudge-and-wink dedication? How come the sonnets were then
suppressed for over a hundred years?It's just too easy an option to claim these poems as "fiction."
You just duck all the hard questions by such a stance. Here's
a challenge: give us a reading of Son 107 as "fiction." What
can it mean? But contextualize it (Elizabeth's death in March
1603 and Southampton's release from the tower) and all becomes
clear, as do the succeeding few sonnets which plainly describe
the renewal of a love relationship.I look forward with unbated breath to your interesting response.
Posted by Prof Mike on April 11, 1997 at 03:57:45
In Reply to "This is what "convinces" you?" posted by Bruce Spielbauer on April 10, 1997 at 15:07:36
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