A Portrait of The Dark Lady
When I read Shakespeare Sonnets, I feel as if he actually talks to me in front of me. Unlike his theather plays (pure drama) and other works, I experience an intimate relationship with the poet and quite understand his feelings to the fullest expression of his verses. Perhaps, the passion and love expressed in some of his verses are consolidated into a trigger for inspiration as if, in fact, it conveyed my feelings for someone especial.
Shakespeare has certainly touched my sensibility to read poetry. He is quite visual and even kinesthetic in his writing. The rythm in his sonnets is the rythm of British life, yesterday and today. I have selected a series of sonnets excerpts to look at from his collection and how they inspired me.
The average Shakespeare reader has probably done a much better job than I have. Except for my reading of his Sonnets, his extended and dramatic work remains a complicated or rather neglected reading task for me, with many incomplete attempts to understanding it from different, various perspectives. Yet his categories are clear: romance, honor, ethics, and various others of social living and values where friendship and love are to be exalted from his dramatic context. But his poetry is more personal and kinesthetic, powerfully driving a reading-like-a-writer drill into a comprehensive reverie of love and passion. This means that the reader lives the poetry, the story within the poem, and the feelings associated with each verse's rhyme and rhythm sometimes arguably being closer to a free verse (verso libre) than to perfect metrics.
Reading the first verse in one of Shakespeare's sonnets is like starting a new clean conversation with your loved one, whether in person, via email, or by text, it hinders a sense of clarity that opens up a new reverie in the daydreaming paradise, although few critics do believe in that the sonnets have some autobiographical value. In particular, I personally believe that some on ethics and business, such as, on usury and loans, could well be related to Shakespeare's real life. Indeed, some Shakespearean verses were dedicated to Southhampton, the patron of about twenty of them.
As I look for a real life or existentialist driver or trigger in Shakespeare Sonnets' hidden messages, I encountered the perceived paradox that many characters in need of love reject that of others who have an enormous need to love them, and you can refer to the frequent love and hate contrast in many of them. A similar but far more complex analogy could be made with entities like music itself. The first 126 poems related the romantic relationship between the young and the poet, while the rest through poem 154 focus on the Dark Lady. Certain poems numbered in the 80's and 90's involve the so called Rival Poet , who according to some experts, was Barnabe Barnes or one among Daniel, Drayton, Marlowe, Nash amd Spenser. The sonnets were dedicated to W.H., most likely William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. Surprisingly, the Sonnets were published without Shakespeare's consent by Thomas Thorpe in 1609.
Thus, while the Shakespearean sonnets are not necessarily like his Romeo and Julieth, the paradox is expressed through some pre-determined or even pre-established intrigue among them through so many scenarios presented. The sonnets have a sense of metric imperfection, as it the poet had purposedly neglected it, and there is significant pessimism, contrasting feelings of love and hate, in content and style. Besides, indeed, the criteria through which love is presented in his Sonnets is not perfect either, but rather deeply passional and methodically organized like a small piece of condensed drama.
SELECTED SONNETS
P.S. To me Shakespeare is not only the greatest British literary figure, but also a blessed man and a holy soul.
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