Sonnets

[Farzana]

A good read for poetry maniacs....when shakespear wrote about a dusky lady.......may be Asian.

[Alex]

Two passions dwell in poet's heart
Two desperate obsessions are reflected through his art
Those are two characters from Shakespeare's poetry triangle:
The dark skinned lady and the man of fair skin
His charm is gentle and she's a striking beauty queen
Three lives, three loves in chains of jealousy are fatally entangled
Did two conspire secretly behind the poet's back
Betraying him two times, which caused his soul to wreck ?

[[deleted user]]

Here is my tribute to Shakespeare, from what I understand he was regarded as a hero by the poorer class.

Sonnet no.1

The pauper’s friend

Now thou hast mingled with the noble class
but they’d not see in life that I do see,
they hold their feasts', drink from their purest glass,
in finest mansions built beside the sea.
See not the homeless begging on the street,
nor in dark laneways, wet with cold they die.
See not the children sick or with bare feet,
nor for the measly scraps thrown out they vie.
If I could forward through the frames of time
to lands afar unheard of now by thee,
would not thine eyes view pestilence and crime,
would still there be fine mansions by the sea.
Where still are those who sleep in laneways cold,
where nobles, whom for wealth their souls they’ve sold.

David J Delaney.
17/11/2009 ©

[Pam]

Dark, not dusky -- she's dark because dark (esp. in those days) was symbolic of bad or evil, and the poet wants to taint her reputation. She's the dark lady, and Shakespeare hates her because she's in love with the beautiful young man, whom the narrator of the poems (or maybe even Shakespeare himself) also loves. Out of Shakespeare's 154 sonnets, the first 127 are love poems written to the beautiful young man, and the last 27 are anti-love poems written scathingly about the dark woman. She was the poet's rival for the affections of the beautiful young man.