For Friday, read Sonnets 86-110, though I want to specifically focus on the following: 86, 87, 91, 94, 106, 110.We'll do an in-class writing response (#11) on something related to the Sonnets, but I'll say more about that in class. :)
Some ideas to think about:
* How does Sonnet 86 respond to 80, even using some of the same metaphors and imagery? If we want to look at 86 as a revision of the earlier sonnet, in what spirit or mood is it written in?
* Imagine that Sonnet 87 is a speech in a play: how should it be delivered? What kind of "farewell" speech is this? Does it offer hope of an eventual reunion? Or is it goodbye, not for now, but forever?
* Sonnets 91 and 94 seem to be particularly about class and rank. How do they complicate the relationship between poet and muse, and in what way is class/rank guilty of the betrayal? Is the muse 'bad' because of his rank--or in spite of it?
* Sonnet 106 is about the art of writing poetry itself: how can anyone write a love poem when there are hundreds of thousands of poems behind you? We could even argue that this poem is a defense of why Shakespeare writes, and what distinguishes his poem from the ancient poets'. So what does he mean by the line, "So all their praises are but prophecies/Of this our time, all you prefiguring;"?
* Why might we be tempted to read Sonnet 110 as about the playwright's trade? Knowing this is by Shakespeare, why might this lay bare the true 'sin' of the poet's existence--and what came between him and his muse?
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