The Evasive Sonnet CXVI (116) Essay -- Sonnet 116 Essays

In my survey of Shakespeares Sonnets, I have found it difficult to sincerely regard any single sonnet as inferior. However, some of the themes could be regarded as rather trite. For example sonnet XCVII main idea is that with my love away I feel incomplete, sonnet XXIX says that besides your love remembered makes life bearable, while sonnet XXXVIII makes the beloved the sole inspiration in the poets life. These themes recycled in love songs and Hallmark cards, hardly original now, would hardly have been any newer in Elizabethan England. However the hackneyed themes of these sonnets is in a sense the source of their essence. These emotions, oftentimes difficult to adequately articulate, are shared by all that have loved, been loved, lusted or been hurt in a relationship. Still, it is certainly difficult to criticize Shakespeares work as a whole. One would nevertheless show his ignorance if he were to argue against Shakespeares sophisticated style. Far easier than finding infer ior works from this cornucopia of verse would be to snatch and guard his more elaborate, bright works such as sonnet XVIII. These lucky few need very little explanation for they speak for themselves. Scholarly glosses, profound explanations, and critics interpretations - needed in the more ambiguous sonnets - are not only unneeded in these sonnets but sometimes unwanted. It is an insult to the intellect of the reader for a scholar to be as presumptuous with these jewels of verse to think that it needs someone asserting meaning ex cathedra. They have their distinguished place because, after slow and advertent reading, one may bask in meaning and beauty, contemplating the sonnets bearing on his life. One does not need a critic to el... ...Linda Gregersons explication of Sonnet 116. http//www.the atlantic.com/unbound/poesy/soudings/shakespeare.htm. 8 I say that this is not a popular reading and not without error because I have not yet seen any learned work to confirm my reading of these lines. In fact, I have seen much to contradict my assertion. Helen Vendler notes that most readers, guided by the beginning of the sonnet, misinterpret it. I flout with Vendlers assertion but not her reading (or other scholars for that matter), and hence I present my own. 9 Ingram and Redpath, 268. 10 Helen Vendler, The Art of Shakespeares Sonnets (Cambridge, Massachusetts Harvard University Press, 1997) 489. 11 Booth, 385. 12 Booth, as well as Ingram and Redpath seem to be of this mind. 13 Lawrence Ferlinghetti, A Coney Island of the Mind (New York New Directions, 1958) 30.