Since we only got to read a few Sonnets, and I want to provide a good introduction to Shakespeare before we read Twelfth Night, I want to spend one more day on the Sonnets. So re-read the ones in our book, and expect an in-class writing during Wednesday's class. And since you were enterprising enough to look on the blog, guess what sonnet it's going to be over?
...Sonnet 138!
What's interesting about Sonnet 138 is that it exists in two different versions (as students who took my Critical Responses to Poetry class might remember). Here's the other version, which you're welcome to read and compare them before Wednesday's class, where we'll talk about this at length.
Sonnet 138a
When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her, though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutored youth,
Unskillfull in the world's false forgeries.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although I know my years be past the best,
I smiling credit her false-speaking tongue,
Outfacing faults in love with love's ill rest.
But wherefore says my love that she is young?
And wherefore say not that I am old?
O, love's best habit is a soothing tongue,
And age in love loves not to have years told.
Therefore I'll lie with love, and love with me,
Since that our faults in love thus smothered be.
Fun, eh? More on Wednesday...
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