Homebound Unbound

 When you read something like this, you want to share it with a friend, so I am sharing it with you.

Let me introduce you to Sonnet #139.  (Shakespeare = S.  Beloved = B)

• I think B is very beautiful, and either she flirts a lot, or S is nutty in love with her and possessive.
• S is asking B to do something. What do you think it is?
• Notice how S talks about being wounded and slain. What’s that doing in a love poem?
• Think of B’s good looks as a weapon. Then see how later S calls them his enemies.
• Remember to flip around subjects and verbs. (For example, change “call not me … ” into “don’t (you) call me …”)

Sonnet #139

O, call not me to justify the wrong
That thy unkindness lays upon my heart;
Wound me not with thine eye but with thy tongue;
Use power with power and slay me not by art.
Tell me thou lovest elsewhere, but in my sight,
Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside:
What need’st thou wound with cunning when thy might
Is more than my o’er-press’d defense can bide?
Let me excuse thee: ah! my love well knows
Her pretty looks have been mine enemies,
And therefore from my face she turns my foes,
That they elsewhere might dart their injuries:
Yet do not so; but since I am near slain,
Kill me outright with looks and rid my pain.

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If you want some ideas about what this might mean, keep reading down to Some thoughts to think.

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It also helps solve the puzzle if you know stuff about Shakespearean sonnets. Here’s what I remember.  (It HAS to be written like this or it’s just NOT a sonnet):

A sonnet

• Has to have a rhythm pattern called iambic pentameter. 
  • Penta  (which means 5, as you remember from geometry)
  • Meter which means repeated measure.
  • Iamb 
    • Is one a metric “foot”
    • It has 2 syllables.
    • 1^st unstressed, 2^nd stressed.
    •  For example;
      • Because,
      • Today,
      • Let’s go!
  • So, each line is 5 iambs, and ta da!  You have iambic pentameter
• Has to have seven couplet
  • 2 lines = 1 couplet.
  • Like a couple, as you remember from romance
  • 2 couplets = 1 quatrain. (2 X 2 = 4.)  (4 = quatr, like quarter or quadrangle.)
•  Has to have this rhyme pattern:
  •  
    •   1^st   line rhyme a
    • 2^nd  line rhyme b
    •  3rd  line rhyme a
    • 4th  line rhyme b
    •  5^th   line rhyme c
    • 6^th   line rhyme d
    • 7^th  line rhyme c
    • 8^th  line rhyme d
    • 9^th  line rhyme e
    • 10^th  line rhyme f
    • 11^th  line rhyme e
    • 12^th  line rhyme f
    • 13^th  line rhyme g
    • 14^th  line rhyme g
  • So, you have 3 quatrain, and a couplet.        .
•  Uses the patterns to help show the meaning
  • The whole sonnet has a theme. (Which you think you know at the beginning)  
  • Each quatrainhas one idea that is part of the theme.
  • The next quatrain changes the idea a little.
  • And the last quatrain, ditto.
  • Transforming the idea into the last couplet,
    • Which is the zapper! *
    • The 2 lines of the zapper rhyme. (g, g,  remember?) 

*In a good sonnet,  after you’ve read it 5 or ten times, (because it gets more beautiful each time); you are zapped, and you say, “OH, so THAT’S what you were talking about!  Cool!!”  Then you share the sonnet with a friend, which is what I am doing now. BTW, zapper is not an officially recognized term in literary criticism – yet.

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Some thoughts to think:

Look at each quatrain as a separate idea.

Watch for the idea to change.

I think the theme of this one is a cross between, “you done me wrong” and “please put me out of my misery.”

In the first line of the sonnet, S  is responding to an accusation, I think.  What do you suppose B  accused him of?

By the second line, S has made her the bad guy.  Don’t you think? What is S accusing her of?

He talks about her eye and tongue.  He also talks about wounding and slaying.  HMmm.

How is B wounding him? 

In the first and second quatrains, how does S want her to slay him?

I think “cunning” and “art” refer to her flirtatiousness.  But do you think using those words means S suspects her of trying to dump him?

Notice how S has started to change his thinking at the beginning of the third quatrain. “Let me excuse thee” This is where he talks about her pretty looks being his enemy.  So, who’s the bad guy now?

Then, the zapper.  How has S changed what he is asking B to do?

did you actually get this far???

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