Friday, June 20, 2008

Ode to Love...and Love's Tragedy


Shakespeare's Sonnets come from the Bard's deepest thoughts, his passions, suffering and the expression of the ultimate Joy of Beauty, Poetry and Love.

Here are the words of a suffering soul, in love with "someone" much younger than himself, thus his references to age being no barrier to true Love in many of the verses.

All or most scholars agree, the Sonnets were written about and to a single person. The argument, of course, is who this person was...Oscar Wilde speculated the object of the Master's heart was a young male actor, due to the law, had to play all the female parts as acting in the 16th century was purly a man's job.

Shakespeare himself has become a mystery as to his true identity for many years. Interestingly, Sigmund Freud's "free time", was devoted to revealing the Bard's true identity

For me, when reading the Sonnets, Who wrote them or Who they were written For makes no difference. Because the Sonnets are the most beautiful Ode to Poetry, the Muse and Real Love and its Tragedy, that all too often, is true Love's end result.

Over the last three nights, reading or more acurately 're-reading' these wonderful verses, my admiration for the English language, its beauty and cadence, its ability for subtle irony and truth is astounding.

One of my favourites: LXXV.

"So are you to my thoughts, as food for life, Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground: And for the peace of you I hold such strife As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found: Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon Doubting the flinching age will steal his treasure; Now counting best to be with you alone, Then better'd that the world see my pleasure: Sometime all full with feasting on your sight, And by-and-by clean starved for a look; Possessing or pursuing no delight, Save what is had or must from you be took. Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day; Or gluttoning on all, or all the away."

"Feasting on your sight", just to see (her) brings on so much joy.

"Thus do I pine"... but saving her image in his mind like a glutton, a wanting, a Love deep and experienced from afar...

Merely to remind yourself of the beauty of the English language read the Bard's Sonnets and Poems.

A gift.
Craig Middleton
Written originally for Amazon.com
All Rights Reserved.

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