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Some of the sonnets seem to me to be quite lovely and
direct. Others seem to me to be more artifice and
intellectual game than heart. But my feeling is still
that they are not essentially/only to be taken as heatfelt\
and private.I don't know what you mean by "orthodox" critics, but lots
of people discuss these sonnets in lots of different ways -
from people who read them as a direct and transparent
expression of Shakespeare's feeling to people who read them
as elaborate word-games constructed as such and devoid of
feeling. The truth undoubtedly lies somewhere between the
two - and in fact I think that the variety of critical
response is good evidence of that.But as to the significance of the frame: people have often
read Sidney's sequence as autobiographical despite the frame
since Stella is supposed to be Penelope Rich. So the
fact of a frame doesn't prove inauthenticity, nor does
the absence prove the opposite. The frame is a formal
conceit - like the sonnet form itself - which a writer can
take or leave. Petrarch's original sonnet sequence has
no frame (it's Petrarch to Laura), but is elaborately
public and witty and formal.I do think it matters here that form was more important
in renaissance poetry than it is now, and that personal
self-expression was less so. So it is not so clear to
me that a writer sitting down in a private nook to please
himself would produce expressions of what was in the
heart. Or even that a writer would think of writing for
private reasons.
Posted by Cloten on April 13, 1997 at 09:45:49
In Reply to "well, yes," posted by Bill Routhier on April 12, 1997 at 22:18:11
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