A stunning edition. Incredibly dense but rarely arrogant! Love it. ( )

At least there are many ways to get opinions on what Shakespeare meant in each poem. ( )

37. The Sonnets by William Shakespeare
editor: Stephen Orgel, with introduction by John Hollander (1961, 1970, 2001)
published: originally 1609. This edition says 2001 but has a 2010 reference.
format: 193-page Pelican Shakespeare paperback
acquired: 2019 (with kidzdoc, at the Joseph Fox in Philadelphia, which closed earlier this year)
read: Jul 3 – Aug 19 time reading: 12:18, 3.8 mpp
rating: 5
genre/style: Classic poetry theme: Shakespeare
about the author: April 23, 1564 – April 23, 1616

-- I read these along with another edition: All the Sonnets of Shakespeare edited by Paul Edmondson & Stanley Wells]

I read these as a group read on Litsy, at a pace of 22 sonnets a weak, or roughly 3 a day. They are really difficult to read. They take time, and you have to read them a few times, just to get the surface meaning. It's nothing like his plays, which are all light fun in comparison. For perspective, we usually at have 10-15 people in our group reads, but only four of us were really active for these. My feeling on finishing them was akin to having just finished a marathon. I was happy I made it. Then I went back and read the first 126 poems again, but rapidly, getting a different take. But both ways were rewarding.

They‘re difficult, but as you work through them they do open themselves up with so much language play. They are full of lines and stanza's and phrases that strike and stun and that you want to remember, especially once they click. They stretch the reader's mindset. And they reward re-reading. Each visit seems to give a different poem, and a different experience, even as favorite lines reward with recognition.

My favorite stanzas are those that open Sonnets 60 & 65, ones I would like to etch into memory. Sonnet 60 opens on the relentless ripples and their implications for wearing time:

Like as the waves make towards the pebbl'd shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.

(Full sonnet here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45095/sonnet-60-like-as-the-waves-make-to... )

Sonnet 65 opens on how the world destroys those impractical fragile beautiful things we love:

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea
But sad mortality o’er-sways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?

(Full sonnet here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50646/sonnet-65-since-brass-nor-stone-nor... )

There is also a curious thing about the subject. I don't normally think about the nature of Shakespearean all-male theatre-crews off stage. Surely they must have been a draw to gay men. I just never thought about it with Shakespeare. (Are there any gay characters in his plays...other than the scene Coriolanus?) Anyway, these are mostly gay poems. This was a thing in 1590's London--both Petrarchan sonnets and gay sonnets were in vogue. So Shakespeare was writing to fashion. But I never thought of him as gay, and I can't picture the author of these poems as straight. So... it requires some mental adjusting.

Another curious thing is that Shakespeare may not have been involved in the 1609 publication of these sonnets. Which means we have to wonder how private these were, and also about their ordering. There is a narrative here. A man chides another man, a youth, about finding a woman and having children to perpetuate his line, or, as the sonnets suggest, his youth. Then Sonnet 18 comes, the most famous. "Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?" And it's here that it comes clear our writer is in love with this young man. Sonnets 18-126 go through a whole assortment of love's emotions - direct love, being apart, staying awake all night, jealousy, and then surprisingly asking for forgiveness, and what might be construed as a breakup. Within are rants on time and death and public reputation and criticism. It is the heart of this collections and, both in sum and in parts, really beautiful, but not simply. The passive-aggressive string is raw. Sonnets 127-152 are the dark lady sonnets. They are anti-Petrarchan. This lady is described as unattractive, impure, and unfaithful. (I imagined a common prostitute). Also these poems are much more difficult to follow. The collection closes with two playful Greek references to the flame of Love run amok.

The Pelican Edition

I like the Pelican edition. It's minimalist, with an interesting but not very helpful intro. The notes were curt, but smart and insightful. It doesn‘t have any real analysis.

So the Sonnets have a different appeal from Shakespeare's plays. They are not for the faint of heart. They do reward, and they reward re-reading and re-reading more. Recommended for the brave.

2022
https://www.librarything.com/topic/342768#7923261 ( )

A difficult art form, and laid out by a master. ( )

I enjoy listening to the poetry ( )