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Replies | Post Reply | Shakespeare Queries & Replies From Everyone Else 4.2.97: Top | Help
>>The point is, if you claim that a piece of writing can mean >>anything you (or I) say it means, you're saying in effect that it >>means nothing. The sonnets (or plays) become blank checks; >>write in the value you want.Which is exactly what you're doing: using the writing is a blank check to prove your point. You are claiming that whatever you decide you have found in the poems is somehow the truth about Shakespeare, whereas it only tells us about your own biases.
It is possible to interpret the meanings of the poems, but you cannot use them to interpret the feelings of the man with any accuracy. If you do, then you have to admit that Anna Sewell was a horse.
>Then let's say that in the first 127 sonnets he created a fictional >gay speaker who has a fictional gay relationship with a fictional >gay recipient. Do you accept that?
No. I don't accept the sonnets create anything. That's merely you finding the pattern in the inkblot.
They may be fictional. They may be truthful. They may be referring to a gay relationship. They may be referring to a straight relationship. They may be a mixture of both. They may describe things that happened to other people. They may have been commissioned by others to send to their lovers. They may be referring to 127 separate events over a period of 15 years. They may have not have been written in the order published, and they may not have been published in the order WS wanted them to be. If you want to throw in the authorship question, they even may have been written by different people.
YOU DON'T KNOW.
And without knowledge, you're postulating in a vacuum. Without facts, all you see is an inkblot that you can project your own prejudices. You're merely using your religious belief to view the entrails of the poems and draw conclusions that fit your convenience.
The only conclusion that can rightly be drawn from the poems is that they touch upon themes that appear to our 20th century eyes to be dealing with homosexuality. Anything else is merely religious faith, not fact.
Posted by Reality Chuck on April 17, 1997 at 10:43:32
In Reply to "Chuck(le)" posted by Professor Mike on April 17, 1997 at 09:57:10
Replies | Post Reply | Shakespeare Queries & Replies From Everyone Else 4.2.97: Top | Help