Friday, September 29, 2006

Sonnet 147: This works better if you sing it with the originally pronouns, but...

She drives Will crazy! Oh Oooooh!
Like no one else.
She drives Will crazy! Oh Oooooh
But he can't give her himself.


There doesn't really seem to be any message here other than the standard Shakespeaean sonnet theme of our hero, the author, trying to persevere in love against all logical thought, this time possibly going mad in the process. His lust for this girl is feeding his fever (The old addage about starving a cold would seem to oppose his rationale here) and he is ignoring all the intelligent "perscriptions" that could cure him of this love (or insane infatuation). He also mentions being past cure, which could be read either as him just being super-duper-high-school-girl-in-love, or that his unsuccesful pursuit of this girl as weakened his mental state to the point where he is too damaged to return to his previous life unaltered. The second interpretation seems to be confirmed by the very end of the poem which would have us believe that the woman in question has a malevolent agenda. Usually, an ending line like this means the girl turned the guy down.

This primary difference is this sonnet as opposed to the others is in these final two lines which usually only go to reaffirm his love for her, but here seem quite bitter and biting. Perhaps he is still in love, but realizes that she is bad. Perhaps he is bemoaning the fact that she rejected him despite all these painstaking efforts he went through to love her. Or perhaps, Shakespeare used his masterful technique in the first 12 lines to construct the illusion that he loves a girl who he abhors. Following that theory, the whole sonnet was written to give you that uber-amplified flashbulb moment in line 13 when you realize what Shakespeare's true feelings are.

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