Comments on: Shakespeare's Sonnets

Shakespeare's Sonnets

Kattullus — Sat, 24 May 2008 19:40:34 -0800

William Shakespeare wrote some of the world's finest sonnets. The website shakespeares-sonnets.com is a fine place to start delving into the poems. Here you can see scans of the first edition of The Sonnets as printed by Thomas Thorpe in 1609. If you wish there were more sonnets by Shakespeare, your jones might be eased by the Shakespeare Sonnet Shake-Up, which lets you remix them according to taste. And finally there's Shakespeare in Tune, a site where Jonathan Willby recites each of the 154 sonnets following a short improvisation on a German flute.

By: Kattullus

Kattullus — Sat, 24 May 2008 19:42:53 -0800

Here's my remixed sonnet: And sue a friend, came debtor for my sake Make answer Muse, wilt thou not haply say Or I shall live your epitaph to make But let your love even with my life decay Fairing the foul with art's false borrowed face Which like two spirits do suggest me still And my sick muse doth give an other place Reserve their character with golden quill Which rank of goodness would by ill be cured And in themselves their pride lies buried The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured But when my glass shows me my self indeed Love is a babe, then might I not say so But why thy odour matcheth not thy show

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Sat, 24 May 2008 20:10:04 -0800

That shakespeares-sonnets.com ain't gonna win any design awards, but it's a great site nonetheless. And with that last link, you've gotten me snooping around for more info on the German flute, which is a term I'd never heard before.. Thanks for the fine post, Kattullus.

By: facetious

facetious — Sat, 24 May 2008 20:19:20 -0800

Shakespeare's sonnets suuuuuuuck, dude. Discuss.

By: DaDaDaDave

DaDaDaDave — Sat, 24 May 2008 20:26:15 -0800

154 sonnets, you say? Try a hundred thousand billion! (Illustrious precursor of the sonnet remix.) Oulipo forever!

By: shakespeherian

shakespeherian — Sat, 24 May 2008 22:31:52 -0800

I was just coming here to mention Queneau's book of sonnets. Instead, I'll just give my favorite of the Bard's, #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 damask'd, 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.

By: Pinback

Pinback — Sat, 24 May 2008 22:49:25 -0800

154 sonnets? One wonders how he found the time, between recording My Little Angel and battling alcoholism...

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Sat, 24 May 2008 23:38:04 -0800

Shakespeare was a famous writer guy, but we know basically nothing about him!

By: davinciuno

davinciuno — Thu, 29 May 2008 13:56:37 -0800

Thanks for sharing this site. If you read enough Shakespeare, and attend his plays, you find characters dancing across the stage with the same flaws and strengths we have today. The themes, the plots, the characters--all are timeless, and will always be wonderfully enlightening and entertaining.