April is Shakespeare's month and I thought of proposing you some different reading this time and invite you to engage with a bit of poetry :)
    
     Please, choose any of the sonnets and post a comment here. You may also want to discuss the historical, social and literary contexts in which they were created or their importance in the Shakespearean canon and in English Literature. Please, feel free to approach them from any angle you find interesting.
    
     Please, click on the link to read the Sonnets
    
     Looking forward to reading your comments
     Cheers - Chris

Reply to this message

Alert a moderator

FROM fairest creatures we desire increase,
     That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
     But as the riper should by time decease,
     His tender heir might bear his memory:
     But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
     Feed'st thy light'st flame with self-substantial fuel,
     Making a famine where abundance lies,
     Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
     Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament
     And only herald to the gaudy spring,
     Within thine own bud buriest thy content
     And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding.
     Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
     To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.
    
     Hi Chris,
     Thanks for Shakespeae's sonnets; In the sonnet above I was much attracted by certain dichotomies Shakespeare excells in.
     "to thy sweet self too cruel " Herein the poet uncovers the inner conflicts that each of us undergoes sometimes.
     Moreover the poet refers as ususal to the mortality of human beings who are doomed to death,
     "Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
     To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee"
     indeed nomatter how long your life might be, the grave or thee is always your end.
     A lot of oxymorons and paradoxes flavour this sonnet, the oxymorons of life "life vs death", "good vs evil" ," famine vs abundance"....
     cherrs -Mostafa

Reply to this message

Alert a moderator

Dear Mostafa,
    
     Thanks for the sharing, the excelling of dichotomies and the mortality of human beings your mention were like "crutches" to help me move down into the pleasure of reading these sonnets. In your pick I most enjoyed the line:
    
     "Making famine where abudance lies" and I think it's dichotomy, famine and abundance are completely opposite and even paradoxal, is like "we only miss something where the very thing should be" (It's in the bakery wher there's no bread) and it takes a vision, art to excell this like the poet did.
    
     I enjoyed your quottes form the sonnet.
    
     I'd like to share this:
    
    
     When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,
     For all the day they view things unrespected;
     But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,
     And darkly bright are bright in dark directed.
     Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright,
     How would thy shadow's form form happy show
     To the clear day with thy much clearer light,
     When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!
     How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made
     By looking on thee in the living day,
     When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade
     Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!
     All days are nights to see till I see thee,
     And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.
    
     And quotte the following:
    
     "All days are nights to see till I see thee,
     And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me. "
    
     For celebrating the dichotomy between day and night brought in a paradoxal way. And for the poet it seems to be simple and easy to excell a matter of difference between reality and dreams - days change to night and nights to day according to the poet when he experiences the pleasure to see and despair of not seeing the object of love.
    
     Tanguene

Reply to this message

Alert a moderator

Hi Chris & Mostafa,
    
     How interesting and relevant to revisit Shakespeare's sonnets in April, the Poet's month!
     We enjoy Shakespeare's work for his understanding of human nature, his own way of using the English language, and the freshness of imagery. It is commonly said he added new words and phrases to the language, e.g. "flaming youth, "heart of gold", "it's Greek to me"...
     As for this sonnet, Mostafa has already commented about the evidence of oxymorons and paradoxes. We think these figures of speech are conferring much power to the Poet's inner conflicts.
     In our view, these lines "Within thine own bud buriest thy content/ And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding" seem to point out some mean behaviour, as a lament by the poet.
     Does anyone think differently?
    
     Cheers,
     Maria

Reply to this message

Alert a moderator

Dear All,
    
     We shared the following Shakespeare's sonnet in a reading group last Saturday,
    
     " When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,
     For all the day they view things unrespected;
     But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,
     And darkly bright are bright in dark directed.
     Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright,
     How would thy shadow's form form happy show
     To the clear day with thy much clearer light,
     When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!
     How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made
     By looking on thee in the living day,
     When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade
     Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!
     All days are nights to see till I see thee,
     And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me. "
    
     And it was interesting how the group reacted to it:
    
     1- It seems the poet uses the paradox and dichotomy to make (his) existence impossible, and at the same time uses his vision about human nature, the power of love as the reasons for all (his)existence
    
     2- It's not difficult to read Shakespeare in a group, it's difficult only if you read it alone.
    
     3 - to best enjoy Shakespeare's work we should sometimes abandon him in his emotions, and keep looking at his sonnets like a "multiplication table" where "numbers" are "words". We can put together the words from the sonnets in two, three, four... in a combination that creates harmony, like 1+1=2.
    
     One reader said "Shakespeare's is like "Camoes", the day light, life and existence are imperfect and contradictory, but dreams are so perfect and healing if we can still dream" It's like both poets prefer "Nights to days" to avoid the imperfections of life and as "rewards" get the perfections of it.
    
     Life is worth living, some way or another...
    
     Tanguene

Reply to this message

Alert a moderator

Hi Everyone
    
     I think the Sonnets are fascinating because Shakespeare preverts almost all the rules of the poetic tradition of his time. He twists the conventions of the Petrachan sonnet and shock us at every step with his inversions, oxymorons (as you have already mentioned) and use of very unconventional bawdy language in a form that is traditionally devoted to romantic love.
    
     A good example is Sonnet 130
    
     My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
     Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
     If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
     If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
     I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
     But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
     And in some perfumes is there more delight
     Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
     I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
     That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
     I grant I never saw a goddess go;
     My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
     And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
     As any she belied with false compare.
    
     Genius!
     Chris

Reply to this message

Alert a moderator

Hi Everyone
    
     There are many ways to look at the sonnets - or any literacy text for what it matters: we can look at the historical, social contexts of their creation, we can do some close reading, we design activities for language learning and language awareness raising. We can read each sonnet as an individual poem or we can take the sequence into consideration...
    
     My own approach depends on why I'm reading them. Personally, I like taking single sonnets and just let them speak to me. What they say depends a lot on what I'm feeling and what touches me at the moment. I sort of appropriate them :)
    
     This is one of my favourite ones
    
     Sonnet 113
    
     Since I left you mine eye is in my mind,
     And that which governs me to go about
     Doth part his function and is partly blind,
     Seems seeing, but effectually is out;
     For it no form delivers to the heart
     Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch.
     Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,
     Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch;
     For if it see the rud’st or gentlest sight,
     The most sweet favour or deformed’st creature,
     The mountain or the sea, the day or night,
     The crow or dove, it shapes them to your feature.
     Incapable of more, replete with you,
     My most true mind thus makes mine eye untrue.
    
     What about your favourtite ones?
     Cheers - Chris

Reply to this message

Alert a moderator

hey chris
    
     u are right there r many ways to approach a sonnet
     mine is comparison based on thematic grouping
     my all time favourite
    
     Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
     Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
     Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
     And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
     Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
     And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
     And every fair from fair sometime declines,
     By chance, or nature's
     changing course untrimmed;
     But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
     Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest,
     Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
     When in eternal lines to time thou growest;
     So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
     So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. 
    
     and i juxtapose it with spencer's
    
     One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
     but came the waves and washèd it away:
     agayne I wrote it with a second hand,
     but came the tyde, and made my paynes his pray.
     Vayne man, sayd she, that doest in vaine assay,
     a mortall thing so to immortalize,
     for I my selve shall lyke to this decay,
     and eek my name bee wypèd out lykewize.
     Not so, (quod I) let baser things devize
     to dy in dust, but you shall live by fame:
     my verse your vertues rare shall eternize,
     and in the hevens wryte your glorious name.
     Where whenas death shall all the world subdew,
     our love shall live, and later life renew
    
     theme of course
     The triumph of the aesthetic. and love
     and mortality and immortality of experience
    
     cheers
    
     cheers

Reply to this message

Alert a moderator

I think Shakespeare wrote this to the 'fair youth', but as Chris said, I'm also going to appropriate this one - Sonnet 113
    
     Since I left you mine eye is in my mind,
     And that which governs me to go about
     Doth part his function and is partly blind,
     Seems seeing, but effectually is out;
     For it no form delivers to the heart
     Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch.
     Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,
     Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch;
     For if it see the rud’st or gentlest sight,
     The most sweet favour or deformed’st creature,
     The mountain or the sea, the day or night,
     The crow or dove, it shapes them to your feature.
     Incapable of more, replete with you,
     My most true mind thus makes mine eye untrue.

Reply to this message

Alert a moderator

Hi Chris & Everyone
    
     As we had already expressed our views on this interesting Sonnet 113 (a couple of months ago, I think), we 've picked this one today for the sake of love and verse...
    
     Sonnet 76
    
     Why is my verse so barren of new pride,
     So far from variation or quick change?
     Why with the time do I not glance aside
     To new-found methods and to compounds strange?
     Why write I still all one, ever the same,
     And keep invention in a noted weed,
     That every word doth almost tell my name,
     Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?
     O, know, sweet love,I always write of you,
     And you and love are still my argument;
     So all my best is dressing old words new,
     Spending again what is already spent;
     For as the sun is daily new and old,
     So is my love , still telling what is told.
    
     *****
     The Poet seems to inquire about the permanent uniformity of his writing "so far from variation or quick change?" He also thinks the time might have provided him with something new ...
     However, the poet ends up addressing his lover by confessing "you and love are still my argument". We mostly enjoyed this beautiful comparison in the final couplets: "For as the sun is daily new and old,/So is my love, still telling what is told."
    
     Cheers - Maria

Reply to this message

Alert a moderator

Dear Maria & everyone
    
     Thanks for your pick of a poem today, it brings change in the heart of a reader. It seems I know the sonnet 113 by heart now for we've been exposed to it too much, though sweet things are never too much.
    
     I confess it stired deep feelings your note about the couplets-I found myself counting the words (9) to confirm and really sensed you're a great reader and love studying a poem.
    
     I think the poet inquires about uniformity of his writing but it seems he's desapointed for keeping invention as something not wanted or appreciated (by people!):
    
     "And keep invention in a noted weed
     That every word doth almost tell my name,
     Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?.
    
     And I feel by this he ironically tricks the reader because he kept inventing or"giving birth" to new words and he's proud of that, thus contradicting the first 2 lines. It's like he said all the words he uses it was him who invented them, and it changes the idea of desapointment into his tiredness of his inventing new words, the reason why:
    
     "All my best is dressing old words new
     Spending again what is already spent"
    
     Giving us again the sense that as the words he uses are his invention and inventing more will bring nothing new, so he can use the ones he has already invented and bring them like new ones, for even the sun which seems new each day when it rises - please let us not fall in mistake - it is old:
    
     "For as the sun is daily new and old"
    
     the same is like love and "his" words...nothing is new
    
     Thanks
     Tanguene

Reply to this message

Alert a moderator