The copy I'm reading is one that was given to me as a teenager by a friend. I had marked a bunch of sonnets all those years ago, so it was fun seeing what I'd liked back then. Most of them made since to me, and I still like them (12, 18, 30, 35, 55, 60, 64, 94), but I also marked 16/17 and 32/33 and I have no idea why. None of those four speak to me now.
On the whole, I did not dig the sonnets as an adult. I enjoyed 29, 116, 135-6 (word play with Will), and 147 in addition to the ones I've already mentioned, but on the whole, I wasn't grabbed emotionally.
I had forgotten that the first hundred or so sonnets are addressed to a young man, and when I first started reading, I was all, "OMG can he please quit pestering this poor lady to have his babies?" The procreation poems are much less tedious when addressed to a male object of love than a female one.
Themes include the passage of time, aging, inevitability of death, fleeing nature of beauty, legacy through kids and writing.
I also like this line from 9: "the world will be thy widow."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
winterfish
no subject
Date: 2020-09-01 03:47 pm (UTC)On the whole, I did not dig the sonnets as an adult. I enjoyed 29, 116, 135-6 (word play with Will), and 147 in addition to the ones I've already mentioned, but on the whole, I wasn't grabbed emotionally.
I had forgotten that the first hundred or so sonnets are addressed to a young man, and when I first started reading, I was all, "OMG can he please quit pestering this poor lady to have his babies?" The procreation poems are much less tedious when addressed to a male object of love than a female one.
Themes include the passage of time, aging, inevitability of death, fleeing nature of beauty, legacy through kids and writing.
I also like this line from 9: "the world will be thy widow."