The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 25.510  Friday, 19 December 2014

 

From:        John Drakakis <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>

Date:         December 19, 2014 at 6:23:11 AM EST

Subject:    RE: SHAKSPER: Gay Bard

 

A pity that David Basch should opt for a limited ‘allegorical’ reading of the Sonnets.  For most of them it is difficult to know who the addressee is, and in a number of cases the content of some of them extends far beyond what we might normally expect to find in a traditional sonnet. Perhaps we need to think abouit broadening the category of ‘allegory’ so that we can think more seriously about Shakespeare’s own imaginative engagement with the form and content of the sonnet genre.  In that way we might avoid some of the more crude referential models that collapse the Sonnets into fictional autobiographies. Clearly, to treat them as limited formal exercises takes the matter too far in the other direction, but to treat them as crudely referential also fails to account for their sophistication.  Some of them seem to emerge as being aligned with the plays, and this might help to narrow down the dating problem, but this needs a lot more thinking through.

 

Festive Greetings to all

John Drakakis

 

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