On Saturday, August 24, 1996 at 1:00:00 PM UTC+6, Bart Durham wrote:
Danv96 wrote:
Sure, there may be homosexual references in that sonnet. However, some of the respondents, curiously took the tact that that was implying that Shakespear was homosexual. Why can't he have 'references' there? Where is Shakespear's much touted 'negative capability"?his talent for putting himself in someone else's shoes and feelings and using the words and sentiments that they would use?
Part of the problem we have with interpreting the sonnets (if they really need interpreting) is that we assume that whatever Shakespear writes in them is somehow some more personal statement than his plays, and that he
is not assuming some persona for his sonnets. My own interpretation is
that he IS assuming a persona, maybe even playing different parts at different times in the sonnets. I half suspect that these were not necessarily sincere works of poetry (albeit very beautiful). I even
suspect that the entire cycle of sonnets represents a collaborative
effort, a 'correspondence of poetry' between two or more people, but it
was eventually published all under one name. Read the sonnets as a sort of 'conversation' between two people, and they DO make a sort of nice sense.
i agree with all your points.Actually one of my friends named 'Iftekhar Ahmed' recently came out as pansexual and he has been enlightened by reading all of Shakespeare's poems and he finally has something to relate to.
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