Shakespeare SONNET 12 | Close Reading, Summary & Analysis
Vložit
- čas přidán 8. 02. 2022
- A reading of Shakespeare's Sonnet 12 followed by commentary.
Introduction to Shakespeare's Sonnets: docs.google.com/document/d/1P...
Handout on Poetic Meter: docs.google.com/document/d/17...
---
poetry analysis, literature analysis, english literature, Shakespeare sonnets, Shakespeare sonnets commentary, Shakespeare sonnets reading, Shakespeare sonnet analysis, Shakespeare sonnet summary, Shakespeare sonnet meaning, Shakespeare sonnet close reading, Shakespeare sonnet 12, Shakespeare sonnet twelve, Shakespeare sonnet XII.
I originally overlooked this sonnet but your video made me reconsider and showed me much more nuance than I picked up on at first glances. Thank you.
A lovely sonnet on many levels. Thanks Adam.
Hi
I'm an Iranian and I'm so into English literature especially Shakespeare's books
I appreciate you and your channel
Hi, I'm glad to hear that! Thank you for saying hello!
thanks a lot, tomorrow I have mid term and I should learn a Shakespear sonnet and analyse it, I will be beneficial for me during my analysing
Best of luck!
Thanks so much, I have an English test later this morning
Thank you Adam
I just fell in love
U rock it!
You begin by stating “The narrator finally identifies himself.” I am thinking that the narrator identifies herself. Given that the narrator appears to fall in love with the Young Man, the first seventeen sonnets suggest to me that the persona of The Poet is actually Poetess. Of course, it may be a case of homoerotic love, but given the social attitudes of the time, the open commission of the poems and their publication, I think that to be less likely as it would have been a risky venture. What do you think? Is the suggestion of a female Poet persona a plausible one? Does this reading alter your perception of the first seventeen ‘Procreation Sonnets’?
Hey, Robert. Great question! I see your point. If spoken by a male, this sonnet seems too overtly homoerotic for seventeenth-century English culture. I think you're right to say that publishing homoerotic poems would have been dangerous. I still think that the tone and subject matter of these poems signal an older male speaker. There is some precedence for this kind of man-to-man persuasion to marry in 16th-century letters. Desiderius Erasmus's arguments for marriage are good examples of this.
But I don't think that the 'Procreation Sonnets' declare a romantic or homoerotic love for the young man. They seem to suggest romantic love... They praise his beauty, they urge him to marry, they are anxious for the young man's success in love, and they even desire a reciprocated love. But the speaker never explicitly declares a romantic love for the young man. The speaker of the sonnets (1-20) doesn't attempt to persuade the young man to marry or have sex with the speaker himself. So in that sense, I'd say that these poems are not explicitly homoerotic, including sonnet 20. The speaker *wishes* the young man were a woman, so they could enjoy more than a Platonic love. But the couplet gives up that wish by making the distinction between the speaker's love and women's pleasure.
But since she pricked thee out for women's pleasure,
Mine be thy love, and thy love's use [i.e. sex] their treasure.
This couplet (it seems to me) only makes sense if the speaker is male.
Sonnet 20 is not the first to imagine the creation of the young man. Sonnet 11 has Nature creating him expressly for procreation with a woman: "thee for her seal, and meant thereby | Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die." So the idea of a female speaker (for some of these sonnets at least) is possible.
@@closereadingpoetry I am delighted you have invested so much time in such a considered response. I am close reading these sonnets at a rate of one a day at the moment. I’m also trying to recite them in original pronunciation as best as I can (although I live just outside Stratford-Upon-Avon, it is no advantage being local as the OP is more akin to a modern day West Country accent. However, the sonnets do rhyme much better in OP). Your close readings are proving useful, but I’m still puzzled by the mysteries (as I guess I always will be since Billy Shakespeare is not around to ask). One reading I am toying with is that Shakespeare has adopted a persona that is speaking to himself, trying to persuade himself against his narcissistic tendencies to bear increase, but ultimately his narcissism causes him to seek eternity in poetry rather than offspring. I’m still working on that reading as I progress. But I am thoroughly enjoying your readings and will continue to work through them.
Something you might enjoy on the subject is a three-way conversation with some distinguished Shakespearean scholars (including Professor Jonathan Bate, one of the UK’s most distinguished literary critics) that took place at Shakespeare’s birthplace… I’ll find the link and post it. Thanks and regards.
czcams.com/video/LqOrZItROxs/video.html
@@robertgainer2783 I like that method of slow reading -- one poem per day! There's so much mystery in the sonnets, I agree. One critic (I think William Logan) described them as revealingly unrevealing. Your idea about the adopted persona and self-dialogue rings true to me. It's possible. That exploration of the inward self -- talking to one's self, exploring inward experience, talking aloud as one thinks -- is such a distinctive feature of the Elizabethan lyric. Would love to hear your read in the OP.
I would enjoy the video by Bate. Please share when you have it!