Shakespeare, Sonnets, and Responding to Poetry

Marlowe: "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love"

Raleigh: "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd"

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove,
That Valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the Rocks,
Seeing the Shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow Rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing Madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of Roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of Myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty Lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and Ivy buds,
With Coral clasps and Amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

The Shepherds’ Swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May-morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me, and be my love.

If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every Shepherd’s tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move,
To live with thee, and be thy love.

Time drives the flocks from field to fold,
When Rivers rage and Rocks grow cold,
And Philomel becometh dumb,
The rest complains of cares to come.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields,
To wayward winter reckoning yields,
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy’s spring, but sorrow’s fall.

Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of Roses,
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten:
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.

Thy belt of straw and Ivy buds,
The Coral clasps and amber studs,
All these in me no means can move
To come to thee and be thy love.

But could youth last, and love still breed,
Had joys no date, nor age no need,
Then these delights my mind might move
To live with thee, and be thy love.

Other Responses:

John Donne: "The Bait"

Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,
With silken lines, and silver hooks.

William Carlos Williams: "Raleigh Was Right"

We cannot go to the country
for the country will bring us no peace
What can the small violets
tell us that grow on furry stems
in the long grass among
lance-shaped leaves?

Dorothy Parker: "The Passionate Freudian to His Love"

So come dwell a while on that distant isle
In the brilliant tropic weather;
Where a Freud in need is a Freud indeed,
We'll always be Jung together.

(last stanza copied above)

Responses in other genres: Jolene/Diane/Beyonce

Responses to/with Sonnets

Two notable examples from very different eras:

Anne Locke (1533-1590)--  A Meditation of a Penitent Sinner
Ted Berrigan's (1934-1983)-- Sonnets and the cut-up method

Shakespearean Sonnets, Background Info, and Form

Sonnet—Italian for little song
14 lines
ABAB CDCD EFEF GG rhyme scheme
Iambic Pentameter
Octave and Sestet
Turn/Volta
 

• Shakespeare’s sonnets specifically riff on the more classical themes common in the sonnets of Petrarch and Philip Sidney. 
• They praised ideals and elevated love to the realm of the poetic.  Shakespeare sort of explored the path of love that was less travelled.  Lust, jealousy, obsession, etc. 
• Instead of writing to nymphs and beautiful women, Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets are mainly addressed to a young man/fair youth (the first 126) and a Dark Lady (the final 28).
• The first 17 sonnets are generally referred to as the procreation sonnets.

Sonnet 130

Synopsis:
This sonnet plays with poetic conventions in which, for example, the mistress’s eyes are compared with the sun, her lips with coral, and her cheeks with roses. His mistress, says the poet, is nothing like this conventional image, but is as lovely as any woman.
 

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound.
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.

​ And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
 As any she belied with false compare.

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"Dim Lady" by Harryette Mullen

Sonnet 29

Synopsis:
The poet, dejected by his low status, remembers his friend’s love, and is thereby lifted into joy.

 
When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;

​ For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
 That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

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"Mixtape 29" by Scott O'Neil.  Who isn't a poet.
​And maybe wrote this last night.

Your playlist came in my inbox, my wreck,
Teeming with songs of sadness and ennui.
These classic bands like TLC and Beck,
Say you’re a scrub and a loser baby.
 
You aspire to be 30, Badflower,
Saying Garbage like you’re only happy
When it rains and singing in the shower,
Loser 3 Doors Down, in apt. not 2B.
 
Your tonal trauma clearly makes you hurt,
And while I am touched by what you have said,
And while I don’t want to be rude or curt,
You creep in the grief of your Radiohead.*
 
This pressure on my shoulders, I must say
I’m not Coldplay and can’t “Fix You” today.

Your turn: Sonnets 2, 18, 131, 138, plus 130 and 29 (but you need to spin them in a different direction than Mullen and I did).