I love Shakespeare. I mean, I really, really, really love Shakespeare. I don't know if the man was a wizard or what, but his writing completely embodies everything GetLiterary stands for with the motto: "A place where words are magical!"
Not only did a lot of his plays deal with the supernatural and magic in itself, but the way he just understood humans never ceases to amaze me. He wrote at length about mortality, desires of the flesh (if you know what I mean😉), love, power and ambition, greed, betrayal, the desire to be remembered, and any other number of traits or emotions every human has experienced in one way or another. It's baffling.
And just to prove that I'm obsessed with Willy Shakes, here are two copies of his complete works, plus a book of all of his sonnets, and that's not including the multiple different books of his plays that I have. It's a problem. (Except it's totally not.)
But I Don't Get Shakespeare...
Now, it's no secret that his writing is known as being intimidating, and there's a perfectly valid reason for that if you've never really gotten into it before. It is, after all, from the Elizabethan Era. I mean, the dude lived from 1564 to 1616, for crying out loud. Language has changed quite a bit since then. It's a little weird to think of it this way, but in those days, his writing was as easy to read as what I'm writing this exact instant, and as I'll show you in just a little bit, it doesn't have to be scary to read for the modern person, either.
Most people know the story of Romeo and Juliet, and probably also Hamlet. (How you doin', Lion King?) Maybe even Twelfth Night. (Ever seen She's the Man?) A lot of people, however, aren't really familiar with his sonnets.
*sigh* Oh, his sonnets.
That collection of 154 wonderful poems, all beautifully structured and filled with incredible images. Thanks to the brilliant and incredible Mrs. Hench's Shakespeare class that I took for three years in high school (as I mentioned in my very first post here on GetLiterary), I got really into the sonnets, from reading and analyzing them, all the way to performing them and even finding comfort in them. This picture is just two of his sonnets annotated. Most of them look like that when I'm through with them. And they're here to show you, once again, how much I love the sonnets, in case you weren't quite convinced yet. I really love them.
As I've made very clear before, I've been through some things in my life, and I have always found comfort from words, but especially sonnet 71 at various points when I've lost loved ones— I like to think that they'd be saying something similar to me, even though I definitely won't ever forget them. I'll make it more digestible for those of you who don't exactly dig writing from 409 years ago (it was written in 1609), but without further ado, here it is:
Sonnet LXXI
No longer mourn for me when I am dead Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell Give warning to the world that I am fled From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell: Nay, if you read this line, remember not The hand that writ it, for I love you so, That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot, If thinking on me then should make you woe. O! if, I say, you look upon this verse, When I perhaps compounded am with clay, Do not so much as my poor name rehearse; But let your love even with my life decay; Lest the wise world should look into your moan, And mock you with me after I am gone.
Summary Time!
So, to translate that into modern English, I'll take it line by line:
Don't be sad when I die,
When you hear the funeral bells
Tell everyone that I have left
This vile world to join the worms in the ground.
No. When you read this poem,
Don't think of me. I love you so much
That I would rather be forgotten
If thinking of me made you sad.
When you read this,
Long after I've been in the ground and covered with dirt,
Don't even let yourself think my name.
Instead, let your love decay along with me,
So nobody can take your grief
And use it to mock you for loving me.
Wow, That's Messed Up
Yeah, I'll give you that one. On the surface, it sounds kind of whiny, and maybe (definitely) pretty morbid, but bear with me, here. Let me show you why I love Sonnet 71 so much.
First of all, the whole point of this sonnet is telling people who love him not to mourn him when he's dead. Instead of having people weep and grieve, he wants them to celebrate that he's out of this crappy world (we can all agree that this world can be crappy sometimes). And the last thing any of us wants is for people we love to be sad, right? I think that, in and of itself, makes this sonnet awesome.
I also think that the images are extremely effective. Sure, they aren't exactly pretty images, but they certainly create a picture in your brain, which is part of the power poetry has. I, for one, like the thought of returning to the earth, being "compounded with clay," and "dwelling with worms." Unless science figures out how to stop us all from dying (which would be pretty rad if we're being real), there's going to come a time when our lives end. I'm well aware that this sounds macabre, but I take comfort in knowing that my physical body will eventually be nothing more than fertilizer. Not only is it a reminder to be humble, because we all end up the same way in the end, but it also helps take a little of the stigma away from death— it's just a part of life, and even though we miss the people we love when they pass away, I like to think they're in a better place. (Whether or not I'm religious doesn't have anything to do with that.)
One little blip of irony, though: The first 17 sonnets, affectionately known as "the baby-making sonnets" by my Shakespeare class, discuss fertility and living on through his words. He notes that, as long as his writing is around, the people he writes about will always be with us. So it's kind of funny to me that this sonnet is basically saying that he doesn't want to be remembered when his previous sonnets, and many sonnets after this one, talk about how being written about immortalizes them. But hey, we've all contradicted ourselves from time to time. ;)
Structure
This part is a little more boring than the content itself, but it still says something about what Willy Shakes was trying to convey, so it's important to talk about, too.
The standard sonnet has a rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, and is separated into three quatrains (groups of four lines) and one couplet (a group of two lines). So 14 lines in total. Typical structure (at least in a Shakespearean sonnet) also dictates that the poem is written in iambic pentameter, which means that there are five sets of unstressed and stressed syllables in each line— think of the rhythm when you read it. It goes, da DUM, da DUM, da DUM, da DUM, da DUM.
Sonnet 71 is, for the most part, a perfect example of this structure. The rhyme scheme is exact, there are 14 lines, with three quatrains and a couplet, and it's in flawless iambic pentameter— except for one single line. Because the sonnets are usually so exact, any departure from the norm is usually saying something. So, what does this one say?
"But let your love even with my life decay..."
That's the line that's irregular. Read it again. The rhythm is off. It goes, da DUM, da DUM, da DUM, da da DUM, da DUM. It's got an extra syllable, which throws off the pattern, and it's basically because this is (likely) the most emotionally impactful line of the poem to the writer. "Let your love for me fade away as my body decays." They say that time heals all wounds, and that's exactly what he wants the people that love him to allow to happen.
See? Not So Bad
So this sonnet is obviously pretty straight forward. Definitely not one of the most dense pieces he's written, linguistically speaking, but if you take a little time, you can dissect everything Shakespeare's written as effectively as this. It's not so bad, I promise. ;) You can do this!
Happy writing,
