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Gerald Hammond, in his book The Reader and the Young Man Sonnets, suggests that the non-expert reader, who is thoughtful and engaged, does not need that much help in understanding the sonnets: though, he states, the reader may often feel mystified when trying to decide, for example, if a word or passage has a concrete meaning or an abstract ...
Sonnet 20 is one of the best-known of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. Part of the Fair Youth sequence (which comprises sonnets 1 - 126 ), the subject of the sonnet is widely interpreted as being male, thereby raising questions about the sexuality of its author .
This category contains a selection of articles about the 154 individual sonnets written by William Shakespeare. For more information see Shakespeare's Sonnets Poetry portal
Shakespeare on the other hand shared a reciprocal love with both his lovers; the objects of his love were “articulate, active partners.” [20] Shakespeare's sonnets are divided between his two lovers: sonnets 1–126 for a male, and sonnets 127–152 for a female; the first to a fair youth, and the second to a dark lady. Petrarch's sonnets ...
The opening line of this sonnet leads directly from the end of Sonnet 5, as though the two poems were intended as one, itself perhaps a reference to the idea of pairing through marriage that shapes the first 17 sonnets. The first line, “Then let not winters wragged hand deface,” also parallels Sonnet 64’s opening, “When I haue seene by ...
Sonnet 77 is the midpoint in the sequence of 154 sonnets. The fact that it is about a mirror may be relevant to its placing. Edmund Spenser mentions mirrors at the midpoint of his sequence, Amoretti , Sonnet 45 of 89: "Leaue lady in your glasse of christall clene, / Your goodly selfe for euermore to vew".
Sonnet 1 is the first in a series of 154 sonnets written by William Shakespeare and published in 1609 by Thomas Thorpe. [2] Nineteenth-century critics thought Thorpe might have published the poems without Shakespeare's consent, but modern scholars don't agree and consider that Thorpe maintained a good reputation.
As Stephen Booth notes, Sonnet 26 works on a series of "shows": the word appears in four separate lines of the sonnet. Booth perceives a vague sexual pun in the second half of the poem, but G. B. Evans and others describe this reading as "strained." The first "show" in the sonnet is directed to Cupid, to whom in servitude the poet's duty is ...