I can still remember the annunciation of the work that we had to study for a full year from my English teacher in the classroom when I was 17 years of age. As french teenagers, we knew that we would have to learn one of the works of Shakespeare at some point during our College years. Also, we were expecting one of the "cliché works of Shakespeare" like Hamlet, Richard III or Macbeth. But no, our English teacher made us discover the beauty of the world of A Midsummer Night's Dream. And the year 2011 became the year where I fell in love with Shakespeare. I read a lot of his work (and will reread them again and again), adored the adaptations made by Laurence Olivier, and started to realise the density of genius of the most famous figure of England. I never came across one of his sonnets until now. Rather: I was not at all interested by this part of his work.
And yet, I was wrong. I was wrong to believe that I could not relate those sonnets to my life, and to things and subjects I like to speak and debate about. The subjects for his sonnets that Shakespeare chooses, are the same which made me love Virginia Woolf. And two that touches me in particular: Time (or Death) and Beauty. As a young teenager, I was victim of bouts of panic attacks. Those attacks were due to intensive thinking about time and death, especially when I became cognizant of the fact that one day I will no longer be able to walk the earth. The subject of Beauty came much after this period of my life, when I looked at myself in the mirror one morning, and noticed some changes in my face since the start of my twenties. I was not the same person whom I was a few years ago, and will be once again different in a few years time. I did not care to know if my appearance improved or not, the fact was that my body was (and is still) decaying. The thought of decay first came to my mind when I had to study and analyse "Une Charogne" (A carcass) by Charles Baudelaire, where the narrator encounters a dead animal during one of his walk with his beloved. The sweetheart is absolutely disgusted by the carcass, and the narrator reminds his lover that she will, one day, be completely similar to this putrid thing. And as I read the first few sonnets of Shakespeare, I was quickly grasped by a very strange feeling: the same feeling that I felt while I was reading A carcass for the first time. Death and Life cannot work without each other. The first 126 sonnets are all about Shakespeare trying to convince his lover (thought to be Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton) that his beauty is similar to a deities', that it will not last, and that an offspring is the solution to the loss of his beauty. Let me illustrate this point with one of my favorite Sonnets yet:
The fact that Shakespeare uses the word "worms" made me quite thrilled. Only because Baudelaire reused this picture in A carcass:
The idea of "having worms for heir" or that the only outcome and result of a dead body is a "black battalions of maggots" always fascinated me. Having had this conversation with an antinatalist more than once, this subject is weirdly dear to my heart. Also, let's not forget that if Shakespeare praises The Fair Youth in the first 126 sonnets, he paints a complete different picture of The Dark Lady in the 27 sonnets left. Whilst the sonnets dedicated to The Fair Youth speak about the purest of love which time cannot destroy, the sonnets dedicated to The Dark Lady sound much more lustful and odious:
We can immediately notice the lack of respectability and praise accorded to The Dark Lady, in comparison with The Fair Youth. But still, I love the thought of Shakespeare writing about two complete different lovers, and how he felt towards them. Unlike some poets and writers who tend to concentrate their whole love on one and unique character, Shakespeare shows us that he had other lovers before and after The Fair Youth and The Dark Lady. Both of those lovers seem to have in a way "eaten a part of him", and taught him the tragic feeling of loving and being loved, and also to handle betrayal. The writer is not resentful regarding the mistakes of his lovers. He accepts them, and also admits that he committed some sins too. Take The Fair Youth for example, instead of writing revolting words on him, he claims to turn him and his beauty immortal by writing those sonnets. Simply because words fly away, writings remain.
The Sonnets by William Shakespeare are one of the best pieces of poetry that I have ever read. I could clearly assimilate some of my personal history with a lot of sonnets. Before this work, Shakespeare was for me just a "name". This man who created so many great oeuvres, being read and loved worldwide, made me understand him at last by writing about his great loves in such a peculiar manner.
3rd picture: Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton in his teens, c. 1590–93, attributed to John de Critz.
Sonnet VI
Then let not Winter's ragged hand deface
In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd:
Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
With beauty's treasure, ere it be self-kill'd.
That use is not forbidden usury,
Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
That's for thyself to breed another thee,
Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;
Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times refigur'd thee:
Then what could Death do, if thou shouldst depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity?
Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair,
To be Death's conquest and make worms thine heir.
The fact that Shakespeare uses the word "worms" made me quite thrilled. Only because Baudelaire reused this picture in A carcass:
"The blow-flies were buzzing round that putrid belly,
From which came forth black battalions
Of maggots, which oozed out like a heavy liquid
All along those living tatters."
The idea of "having worms for heir" or that the only outcome and result of a dead body is a "black battalions of maggots" always fascinated me. Having had this conversation with an antinatalist more than once, this subject is weirdly dear to my heart. Also, let's not forget that if Shakespeare praises The Fair Youth in the first 126 sonnets, he paints a complete different picture of The Dark Lady in the 27 sonnets left. Whilst the sonnets dedicated to The Fair Youth speak about the purest of love which time cannot destroy, the sonnets dedicated to The Dark Lady sound much more lustful and odious:
Sonnet CXXX
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red, than her lips red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.
We can immediately notice the lack of respectability and praise accorded to The Dark Lady, in comparison with The Fair Youth. But still, I love the thought of Shakespeare writing about two complete different lovers, and how he felt towards them. Unlike some poets and writers who tend to concentrate their whole love on one and unique character, Shakespeare shows us that he had other lovers before and after The Fair Youth and The Dark Lady. Both of those lovers seem to have in a way "eaten a part of him", and taught him the tragic feeling of loving and being loved, and also to handle betrayal. The writer is not resentful regarding the mistakes of his lovers. He accepts them, and also admits that he committed some sins too. Take The Fair Youth for example, instead of writing revolting words on him, he claims to turn him and his beauty immortal by writing those sonnets. Simply because words fly away, writings remain.
The Sonnets by William Shakespeare are one of the best pieces of poetry that I have ever read. I could clearly assimilate some of my personal history with a lot of sonnets. Before this work, Shakespeare was for me just a "name". This man who created so many great oeuvres, being read and loved worldwide, made me understand him at last by writing about his great loves in such a peculiar manner.
3rd picture: Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton in his teens, c. 1590–93, attributed to John de Critz.