Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Fairest Creatures

3:01 PM Posted by: Mad Lord Snapcase 0 comments

I have read shakespeare stuff as a kid and have always been interested in reading the sonnets just not gotten around to it to dedicate time to it.

Fun fact: I played the role of Antonio in Merchant of Venice as a kid!

ROM fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory;
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thout that are now the world's fresh ornament
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content
And, tender churl, mak'st waste in niggarding.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee
source:

So reading through the sonnet, I got lost half way through, when I landed on

But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,

What on the earth is the WS talking about? I kind of got the idea he was talking about a guy and he being his own enemy and his child. Yeah, tried a couple of times but the above three lines threw me off. So time for www.google.com or wikkiiipppedddiiiaaaaaaaa.COM to understand the context under which the sonnet was written.

It turns out that the sonnet is about a guy and his vanity, that instead of procreating he is lost in his own self and robbing the world of his lineage. Check out this link for more detailed explanation.

The sonnet is pretty interesting!

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