[New-Poetry] for the Bob-list

[Bob Grumman]

Robin Hamilton wrote:
> From: Bob Grumman
>
> <<
> I'm right now trying to do a super-full analysis of Shakespeare's 
> "Sonnet 18," "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day."  My aim is to 
> determine what makes it a major poem.  I don't anticipate finsing 
> anything innovational about it.
>>>
>
> I have a major problem with your analysis of Sonnet 18 on your blog, 
> Bob, focused on where you say:
>
> "It happily evoked a peak phase of courtship (heterosexual courtship, 
> in my reading of it)."
>
> I think, by reading the sonnet in isolation, you under-rate its 
> radical nature.
>
> (The following assumes, of course, that one accepts the sequence of 
> the 1608 Thorpe printing.)
>
> The sonnet follows seventeen, all of which are addressed to a young 
> man, exhorting him to marry and beget offspring.
>
> Then we have sonnet 18, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" 
> which looks, on the face of it, a movement to a much more familiar 
> scenario.
>
> Except that half way through the next (connected) sonnet, "Deuouring 
> time blunt thou the Lyons pawes," we find in line 11, "Him in thy 
> cour{s}e vntainted doe allow," and it begins to appear that the 
> addressee of the preceeding sonnet 18 is male.  This is confirmed by 
> Sonnet 20, "A Womans face with natures owne hand painted."
>
> The result is that sonnet 18 has to be *re-read from a completely 
> different angle than a first (or virgin) reading would imply.
>
> Fairly radical that, surely?
>
> Robin
>
> (My text of the sonnets is taken from Hardy Cook's internet edition:
>
>        http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/ret/shakespeare/1609.html
>
> R.)
Robin, as you know, I'm aware of the "radical" reading of the sonnet.  I 
don't like it, so I ain't gonna do it.  By itself, the sonnet works as a 
wooing poem by a man for a woman.  Later in my analysis I will get into 
the question of who the addressee is.  I will also discuss the poem as 
part of a sequence.  All I will say here is that as a friendship poem or 
homosexual love poem, it can't be major.  I'm not gonna get into any 
long discussion about why here, but will discuss it at some point at my 
blog.

Thanks for bothering with my blog, Robin!

--Bob