Shakespeare confesses his arrogance
While reading Shakespeare's sonnets, I was struck by how openly arrogantly he portrayed himself. A huge majority of what he wrote contained some sort of statement where he compares himself to God and time in his ability to immortalize whatever and whomever he wants. I don't know of any writers today that so blatanty brag about their writing or their loving. Was Skakespeare more in love with himself than he was with his male lover?
Also, most of his sonnets were extremely predictable in their subject, imagery, and structure. The power and destruction of time versus love and beauty, images of nature, the sun, moon, and stars, and descriptions of the body, and the final two lines containing his sort of....if you will...."fuck Time, I"m better, and thats how much I love you...."
I didn't care very much for the sonnets as a group. There were some that I thought Shakespeares metaphors were really beautiful and I enjoyed exploring their meanings, but overall, not my favorite. I wonder if most writers spend so much time writing poems that are practically identical.
Comments
Interesting comments, but I beg to differ. Life, as many are aware, is short. The things we accomplish in life can easily forgotten by those who pass after us. Case in point: name the first and last names of all of your grand parents. Probably not too hard. Try your great-grand parents. A little harder? How far back can most people remember their own family? I would imagine not very far.
I think Shakespeare realized this, as well as two ways to pseudo immortality.
1) Having children (Sonnet 12)
And nothing ‘gainst time’s scythe can make defence
Save breed to brave him when he takes thee hence.
2) Being remembered in prose (Sonnet 19)
Yet do thy worst, old time; despite thy wrong
My love shall in my verse ever live young.
In fact Shakespeare’s love has endured as he has lived on in prose and is being argued about roughly 400 years after he probably died. So yes, Shakespeare may have been cocky about being able to grant immortality but he seems to have pulled it off.
Posted by: Al Majkrzak | September 17, 2006 1:55 PM
Although I can agree that the themes explored by Shakespeare's Sonnets are hardly new ones I think to criticize them as a collected work would be a mistake.
From what I've read about the Sonnets--mostly from, "The Complete Works of Shakespeare" (Bevington)--it isn't really clear under what circumstances they were published. I don't think they ever meant to stand together as a collection advocating an authoritative position for anything. In fact, it's not entirely clear that they were supposed to be read by a large general audience. I've even read that they may have been published without his permission.
When I take this into consideration I read his various sonnets centering upon themes of friendship, love, beauty, and mortality as explorations into how best to define a particular message he wishes to get across. Some sonnets are clearly more successful at attacking various themes than others. I do not see them all as being individually successful.
Given this, do you still find his sonnets arrogant and cliché?
Posted by: Jordan Husney | September 17, 2006 4:38 PM