SONNETS BY SHAKESPEARE -- ABOUT THIS BLOG

Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets (plus several sonnets embedded in the plays).

We will have commentary (and links to other references), plus performances (ie. podcasts and online audio), films based on the sonnets, and the text of the sonnets themselves, for all 154 of the sonnets .

There are many sounds to Shakespeare. Even Gielgud, in his classic performances, uses an accent that does not rhyme "come" with "doom," or "love" with "prove," so his voice is not likely to be the sound Shakespeare himself heard.

We do not care (too much) about the biography of the historical person who wrote the poems. The poems were written by "Shakespeare". If his (or even her) biography is different from the one we usually attribute to "Shakespeare," so be it. "Shakespeare" is the author of the works by "Shakespeare".

The meaning of the poems is interesting. Many poems have a different meaning depending on whether they are interpreted as spoken in the voice of the poet -- Shakespeare himself -- or the voice of some other character. (For example, many sonnets make perfect sense when spoken by a woman to a man.) The meaning is also different depending on whether a sonnet is interpreted using the context of the order in which the sonnets were published, or in some re-arranged order. (I recently did -- off-off-Broadway -- a two character play in which I re-arranged the order of 25 sonnets to create a two character drama of a troubled relationship between a man and a woman.)

We take the view that we can interpret the sonnets in any of these different ways. They support multiple meanings. Each interpretation is interesting.