A critical reading of a Shakespeare sonnet Shakespeare’s Sonnet 4 sees the Bard analysing the Fair Youth’s refusal to have children from a slightly different perspective, using the metaphor of economic and financial activity. In what follows, we analyse Sonnet 4 (‘Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend …’) in terms […]
A critical reading of a Shakespeare sonnet Sonnet 3 in Shakespeare’s sonnet continues the Bard’s attempts to persuade the Fair Youth to marry and sire an heir. This time, Shakespeare uses the image of the Youth’s reflection in a mirror to make his point: ‘Look in thy glass and tell […]
A critical reading of a Shakespeare sonnet The Shakespeare sonnet that begins ‘When forty winters shall besiege thy brow’ is sonnet 2 of 154, and the second in a series of ‘Procreation Sonnets’. It’s a poem about ageing, and about the benefits of having children – continuing the argument begun […]
A critical reading of a Shakespeare sonnet ‘From fairest creatures we desire increase’: so begins Sonnet 1 in Shakespeare’s Sonnets. This opening sonnet is all about procreation, but also, perhaps, sexual pleasure (including solitary sexual pleasure – about which we say more below). For the next 154 weeks (or nearly […]
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Who is being described here? A provincial lad from Warwickshire in England, this poet and dramatist left the sticks for London, where he performed at the royal court, writing and acting in his own plays, including at the court of Queen Elizabeth I. No, […]