The Sonnets: Shakespeare's GAYEST WORK?
Channel: Self- Writeousness
Date: 2023-06-27

So Shakespeare plays are amazing. 
For a long time, I thought Shakespeare's sonnets were somewhat less amazing.
Here's a video about what changed my mind and why it's important to  release this video during #pridemonth 

00:01 An honest question
00:22 My questionable history with the sonnets
01:11 What makes a sonnet a sonnet
02:39 Some weird history on the sonnets
04:14 So are they sonnets gay or what?

In case you'd like to check out my paltry-but-sincere research, here's the ThoughtCo article as described:
https://www.thoughtco.com/the-shakespearian-sonnet-2985265

...as well as my exchange with Mr. Gregory Maupin at Kentucky Shakespeare whose Q&A was slightly too thoughtful to waste:

"It’s difficult to judge whether the sonnets of Shakespeare are The Best, what with de gustibus non est disputandum and all (literally the only useful Latin phrase I remember, so I thought this first question was a perfect spot for it to establish, you know, Expertise), but they’re by far the most famous and easily the most impressive to carry around in your pocket if you want to impress Marianne Dashwood. But Donne’s are nothing to sneeze at, and Keats, Shelley, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Borges, Neruda, Cummings, Denis Johnson, Christina Rossetti…it would be difficult to argue that they hadn’t all read Shakespeare’s though—even Donne—but particularly if you’re asking on behalf of students, there are certainly others easier to unpack. But if you’re going to reckon with sonnets, Shakespeare’s have to be reckoned with, and reckoning with them does deliver.

I’m no expert on pedagogy, but I think starting with the words themselves is the way to go. Then the form. I’m a big fan of the comically huge edition edited by Stephen Booth in the late ‘70s and his notion that they were intended to be heard every bit as much as the plays were (or at least that hearing them is an exciting way to engage with them, because unless you’ve memorized the poem you’re hearing, you can be surprised by it line by line).

That said, the iambic pentameter/fourteen lines/rhyme scheme angle is very helpful for some students, I think. Choice of words and how the thought unfolds over the course of the poems is entirely entwined with the specifics of the form. As someone whose neurodivergences have  always connected with structure almost as strongly and emotionally as content, there’s a case to be made for, as you say, the math.

My answer is as earnest as your question. The case for the gayness of the sonnets has definitely been made; gay-est, I don’t know. I go with Twelfth Night for that, but again, de gustibus. This is where I have to put in the caveat that’s important to me as an artist, though: we know almost nothing about Shakespeare’s biography and what with the human brain requiring a narrative we love to fill in the blanks. Some do it with inane conspiracy theories; some do it by assuming the plays and poems are autobiographical. We know nothing about the circumstances of the writing of the sonnets. Were they deeply personal? Commissioned? Intended for public consumption? Intensely private but somehow leaked for money? “From” Will? In character? Some messy combination of all these? We’re unlikely to know. I think it is fair to say Shakespeare’s own empathy was so vast that it’s difficult to tell what was personal to him and what was an attempt to wear the shoes of others. At some point I guess we’ll have to let it be enough that he wrote a set of poems (and plays) about human emotion and romantic love in a way that still connects to a just implausibly large percentage of people no matter their own romantic specifics. So, love being love, they’re all over the spectrum, as they ought to be. Is that a long enough non-answer for ya?

Sonnets are a great start for students precisely because they’re short. You can talk about one or two for half an hour or an hour and get the hook into a class. #18, #29, the dark horse #121 if you want a really potentially queer one (though it should land with anyone feeling judged, so…anyone). I’m skewed by my own experience and performance interests, though, so my own tack is first to see/hear a good live production, and if that’s unavailable, a good film of a live production, and if that’s unavailable, a good film, period, then an audio performance, and only after at least one of those, to try to read the play. A novel, say, is a house in and of itself, but a playscript is just a blueprint. It always felt unfair to me to expect students to know how to read a blueprint at that stage. Let them see how many vastly different houses can be built from it. THEN take a look at the blueprint and see how that works. My own favorites are Twelfth Night, Winter’s Tale, and Tempest..."

Also, for great dissections of individual sonnets, your new best friend on YouTube might be https://www.youtube.com/@TootightLautrec

#literature #poetry #shakespearesonnet #shakespearequotes  #shakespeare #shakespeareinlove