SONNETCAST – William Shakespeare's Sonnets Recited, Revealed, Relived
Arts
Sebastian Michael
Sebastian Michael, author of The Sonneteer and several other plays and books, looks at each of William Shakespeare's 154 Sonnets in the originally published sequence, giving detailed explanations and looking out for what the words themselves tell us about the great poet and playwright, about the Fair Youth and the Dark Lady, and about their complex and fascinating relationships.
Podcast transcripts, the sonnets, contact details and full info at https://www.sonnetcast.com
Sonnet 13: O That You Were Yourself, But Love, You Are
The personal, pleading, and particularly revealing Sonnet 13 marks an especially noteworthy change in tone, and it provides one specific detail that narrows the field of candidates for the young man dramatically in one fell swoop.
19:2505/12/2022
Sonnet 12: When I Do Count the Clock that Tells the Time
In the gorgeous, pensive, and mature Sonnet 12, William Shakespeare finds a whole new register to relate a message that is by now familiar, and he reveals something of the depth and melancholy that will become a feature of future poems in the series.
10:4528/11/2022
Sonnet 11: As Fast as Thou Shalt Wane, so Fast Thou Growst
The refreshingly blunt and remarkably utilitarian Sonnet 11 makes a now well established old argument with a couple of surprising new twists and confirms, or at least supports, a couple of observations about Shakespeare's day and about the young man that we made before.
15:0322/11/2022
Sonnet 10: For Shame Deny That Thou Bearst Love to Any
The spectacular Sonnet 10 boldly goes where no sonnet in the series so far has gone before and radically changes the tone and the dynamic between the poet and the young man.
14:4615/11/2022
Sonnet 9: Is it for Fear to Wet a Widow's Eye
The multi-layered and marvellously complex Sonnet 9 sets out with an unlikely supposition to make some strongly suggestive statements about the young man and his conduct and introduces a whole new, massive, and massively important, concept to these poems.
18:5109/11/2022
Sonnet 8: Music to Hear, Why Hearst Thou Music Sadly?
The quite contradictory because poetically plausible but seemingly lightweight Sonnet 8 makes yet another, maybe somewhat more laboured, attempt at coming up with a metaphor to move the young man to making a child: music. But it does offer up a significant new revelation...
18:1631/10/2022
Sonnet 7: Lo! In the Orient When the Gracious Light
In the fascinating Sonnet 7 William Shakespeare draws on a classical image to try and convince the young man that he needs to produce a son: the sun travelling in its chariot through the sky, and although the metaphor may have its flaws it still tells us yet more about the poet, his education, and his cultural context.
23:1824/10/2022
Sonnet 6: Then Let Not Winter's Ragged Hand Deface
Sonnet 6 seamlessly follows Sonnet 5 and continues the argument set up there: the poet compares the young man to a flower which, as winter approaches, can only maintain its beauty in a distilled form, and encourages him to distil himself by depositing his essence somewhere so it can not only be preserved but even multiply itself.
21:5017/10/2022
Sonnet 5: Those Hours That With Gentle Work Did Frame
Sonnet 5 together with Sonnet 6 forms the first pair in the series. It sets out to compel the young man to metaphorically distil his essence by producing a child...
10:2411/10/2022
Sonnet 4: Unthrifty Loveliness, Why Dost Thou Spend
In the intriguing fourth Sonnet, William Shakespeare makes what sounds like a fairly abstract case for the young man to now produce an heir. But could it be that this in itself tells us something about the young man and about the culture he and Shakespeare live and operate in on the one hand and also about the reasons Shakespeare may have for actually writing these first few sonnets that form the Procreation Sequence?...
20:5405/10/2022
Sonnet 3: Look in Thy Glass and Tell the Face Thou Viewest
In the particularly exciting third Sonnet, William Shakespeare counsels the young man to recognise it is time now to have a son so that when he reaches the age his mother is at today, he will be able to remind himself of his youth by looking at him, just as she does when she sees herself reflected in him. What makes this sonnet so interesting is that we learn something very specific and exceptionally significant about the young man here...
15:0629/09/2022
Sonnet 2: When Forty Winters Shall Besiege Thy Brow
In the second Sonnet of the Procreation Sequence, the poet continues his mission of trying to convince a young man of the need to have children, by painting a picture of him in his old age when only a son could carry on his beauty in the world...
12:4820/09/2022
Sonnet 1: From Fairest Creatures We Desire Increase
In the first Sonnet of the generally accepted and originally published series, William Shakespeare tells a young man of unnamed identity that he is wasting his beauty on himself and depriving the world of its due by not having children, and asks him to change his ways. This is also the first of the Fair Youth Sonnets and thus the first of the Procreation Sonnets and so it sets the tone for the opening sequence.
14:1113/09/2022
0 Introduction
The Introduction to SONNETCAST – William Shakespeare's Sonnets Recited, Revealed, Relived.
Sebastian Michael gives a brief account of how he fell in love with Shakespeare's Sonnets and what prompted him to first write a play about them, then record them all on YouTube and create a Video Blog about them and why he is now starting this podcast.
Info, background, transcripts and sonnets at sonnetcast.com
23:0707/09/2022