HONEST SONNET#20 GAY SHAKESPEARE AND LOVING IT

HONEST SONNET#20 GAY AND LOVING IT


First I will show you the standard old school view of the sonnet which is squirrely if not totally flaky.

- according to a website called: “Sonnet 20 and Sonnet 130″
The old school meaning goes like this …..

You were created by Nature as a woman but more beautiful than any woman, for you do not have their faults. But Nature changed her mind as she made you, and turned you into a man, for she herself adored you, and, perhaps desiring congress, gave you male parts. Therefore I cannot love you with the fulness that I would love a woman. But let me have your real love, while women enjoy the physical manifestation of it, which I know to be merely superficies’.(“Shakespeare’s Sonnets” by Kerrigan).

Squirrely right? There is no psychology anywhere in any culture past present or future that would account for the above description of human motivation. Now exchange the reference to the “young man” for the poet himself and you have a very intimate glimpse into the poets realistic struggle with his homosexuality.

– according to Larson:

WOMEN ARE NATURALLY WOMEN

BUT DO I HAVE THE PASSION OF MALE AND FEMALE

WITH A KIND HEART, BUT NOT ACQUAINTED

WITH PASSIONS THAT SHIFT LIKE WOMENS FASHION

AND I HAVE A BETTER EYE THAN WOMEN WHICH IS LESS FICKLE

IN BEAUTIFYING THE OBJECT (MEN?) OF MY ATTENTION?

MAN CONTROLS THE HUE OF HIS APPEARANCE (GAY OR NOT)

IN WAYS THAT MEN FAVOR AND WOMEN ADMIRE

AND WAS FIRST CREATED FOR A WOMEN

UNTIL NATURE AS SHE ALLOWED ME TO BE VERY FOND (OF MEN OR ME)

AND BY ADDITION OF THAT NATURE DEFEATED MY CHANCEs FOR (CHILDREN)

BY ADDING MEN TO MY PURPOSE BUT SINCE SHE REMOVED ME FOR WOMEN PLEASURE,

MY LOVE IS MINE AND AND MY LOVE IS THEIRS (MEN’S) TREASURE (AND NOT WOMEN’S)
Doesn’t that make sense? Below is the original sonnet.

-- by William Shakespeare:
A woman’s face with Nature’s own hand painted
Hast though, the master/mistress of my passion;
A woman’s gentle heart, but not acquainted
With shifting change, as is false women’s fashion;
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;
A man in hue, all hues in his controlling,
Which steals men’s eyes and womne’s souls amazeth.
And for a woman wert thou first created,
Till Nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting,
And by addition me of thee defeated,
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
But since she pricked thee out for women’s pleasure,
Mine be thy love, and thy love’s use their treasure.

Helen Vendler (of the traditionalists) states that the readers should not make the base assumption that Shakespeare’s writings interpret their own feelings.
I’ll drink to that.