The sonnet series…

has a narrative, which in turn progresses from beginning to middle to end, reflected in the tone, tenor and argument. I seek no other solution to the problems of these Sonnets than what is in them. In that sense it is a kind of literary lepidoptera.

I get tired thinking of the meta-narratives these Sonnets have spawned. Who are the FYM? the Mistress? the Rival Poet? Who he, she, he? Ingenious solutions do appear, are mocked and then kept alive in the Vanity press and in the digital domain.

I often hear cries like, ‘I heard Shakespeare didn’t really write Shakespeare!’ Frankly who gives a flying F. he’s dead! Real life him is now legend he; ascribed super-powers of intellect and genius. Or, ‘I heard he was gay!’ Is that why he interests you? Or would you never read him because of it?

Sh. is intensely personal and I don’t care if you’re a die-hard deconstructionist, structuralist, marxist or reader-response theorist. I can categorically state my ignorance of these theories is purposeful. Your theories bore the kaka out of me, whilst Sh. surprises me at each turn of the page. Btw my bookshelf contains enough theoretical books to wing a paper on any of the theories mentioned.

I believe the writer knew he had two main types of audience for his creations. They were those who chose to listen to a Play live, and those who picked up the Poetry or play and read it. Shakespeare was fortunate to be around for the creation of this brand-new literacy and viewing market. His writing had to appeal to both.

If he didn’t know, then he didn’t know himself. Sh. is actually a very basic philosopher, still steeped in the Humoral Psychology of England’s past 1,000 years. The theory of the Humours is based on the understanding of medicine since Galen. Food was turned into vital spirits: manufactured in the liver, creating one of four characters or temperaments. The heart was merely the home of love and beat to the tune of a man’s passions.

Gabriel Harvey, who discovered how blood is pumped through the body by the heart, had to fight against this belief in the old way. But thankfully for open-heart surgeons, Science eventually won the argument. Thus Sh. was also on the cusp of scientific methodology, which smashed the links of the Great Chain of Being. The chain or ladder supposed a cosmology based on the inanimate, to the animate, to the rational, to the angelic, up to God. Every part was essential for the other parts

The philosophy of KNOW THYSELF in all its hermetic glory is still around. But Shakespeare’s generation was the last where Humoral psychology and the Chain of Being are concerned. These ideas are reflected in his writings. Plato was a big influence on the subject of idealised Love.