By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Sonnet 21 in Shakespeare’s Sonnets takes us further into the Bard’s world of personal feeling – specifically, his feelings for the Fair Youth. How should we interpret and analyse Shakespeare’s Sonnet 21 in terms of his clearly burgeoning affection for the Youth?
So is it not with me as with that Muse,
Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse,
Who heaven itself for ornament doth use
And every fair with his fair doth rehearse,
Making a couplement of proud compare
With sun and moon, with earth and sea’s rich gems,
With April’s first-born flowers, and all things rare,
That heaven’s air in this huge rondure hems.