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Let's take your points.>I can only say that the internal evidence convinces me.
On internal evidence, Black Beauty was written by a horse. You're easily convinced because the "internal evidence" fits your prejudices.
>First, because Sh never sought to publish the sonnets, despite >their evident literary greatness (and evident to him, too);
So? This merely means he didn't want to publish. It's pure speculation on your part that it had anything to do with Shakespeare's sexuality.
>>second, because they're of an extremely personal nature, many of them, including homosexual love between the poet and a much younger man (and then later a much younger woman);
How can you say they're "exremely personal" when you have no idea of what affected Shakespeare personally? Just because they sound personal to your completely different viewpoint, doesn't mean they have anything to do with WS's true feelings. It is quite common for an author to sound passionate about something that doesn't really affect him seriously at all. And whether the poems are about homosexual love means that you assume that a writer in 16th Century England had exactly the same viewpoint toward homosexuality as you do -- which is unlikely in the extreme.
>third, because many
clearly refer to events well known to poet and recipient but not
to us, eg Nos. 34 and 35 ("No more be griev'd at that which thou
hast done," etc.,"Clearly?" You see, my friend, there is a concept called "fiction" and one of it's techniques is to refer obliquely to events that never happened.
>fourth, because of the raw intensity of emotion,
especially Nos. 146-152.Sorry, but any good writer can create intensity of emotion. It means nothing.
>Finally, if we don't situate these
poems in Sh's life, how do we read, say, # 107 at all?The fact is you don't know what in the poems is part of WS's life and what is fiction. You are merely picking and choosing passages that just happen to fit your prejudices, Anyone else can pick and choose to "prove" whatever they want. But literary analysis is not proof. You need something called "facts" to back them up. Since you have no facts, you have no proof.
>>At some point, the literature
must be allowed to speak for itself, and the "I" voice is
persuasively personal (at least for me). If it isn't for you,
well, there are some people who don't like Sh at all, and how
do we "prove" to them the contrary judgment?We're not talking about judgment; we're talking about facts. It is a fallacy to assume that using the first person is an indication of personal feelings: there are too many cases when it isn't. My current novel is written in the first person by a woman, but that doesn't make me a woman.
>>Even if we had a letter from Sh saying "the sonnets are my life," would you accept it?
Yes. That's known as "evidence." That's what I'm asking you to provide. Let's see it.
>>Many wouldn't, citing Lawrence's "trust
the tale not the teller." It happens in literary studies all
the time.More proof the literary studies are not to be taken seriously as a way to find the truth.
>>But consider that the sonnets were written over several years,
surely that's agreed, and we can follow a clear narrative implied
by the see-sawing emotions and eventsAnd you can find a clear narritive in Gertrude Stein, if you want, even when she's writing to avoid narrative. That's just your own meaningless interpretation, added to the fact that there is a natural human tendency to find a link between things that have no real connection.
>>If Sh created them as a
fiction, why didn't he publish them? Why just one or two
(138 and 144)in The Passionate Pilgrim? Why did they have to
first appear in a pirated edition full of typoes? Why was a
second edition not published for another century?Plenty of reasons: he wrote them as an literary exercise, not to be published, for instance. Or he knew he wasn't going to make any money from them and concentrated on works that put money on the table. But the reasons are irrelevant to the argument. Even if there is something personal in the poems, you can't say what lines are autobiographical and what lines aren't. You merely take whatever is convenient to support your prejudices.
Finally, my case is very simple:
The majority of men are not homosexual. Therefore, in the absense of any documented evidence to the contrary, it is logical to assume that any particular man is not homosexual. And, since fiction doesn't count (or else it's true that Black Beauty was written by a horse) there is no evidence the WS was homosexual.
Produce the evidence, and I'll admit you're right.
Posted by Reality Chuck on April 11, 1997 at 07:54:35
In Reply to "The sonnets are probably autobiographical" posted by Professor Mike on April 10, 1997 at 14:12:34
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