Sonnets (Vol. 51) | Robert W. Witt (essay date 1979)
Robert W. Witt (essay date 1979)
SOURCE: "Recognition of Beauty," in Elizabethan and Renaissance Studies, Vol. 77: Of Comfort and Despair: Shakespeare 's Sonnet Sequence, edited by Dr. James Hogg, Institut Für Anglistik Und Amerikanistik der Universitat Salzburg, 1979, pp. 166-77.
[In the following excerpt, Witt evaluates the sonnets which focus on the poet's "mistress," or "the Dark Lady, " as opposed to the poems which center around the poet's male friend. Witt argues that while the earlier poems to "the Friend" demonstrate the ideals of "reasonable love, " those to the Dark Lady represent the destructiveness of a lustful, "sensual, " and therefore false love. This negative love, Witt asserts, eventually teaches the poet to appreciate all the more the "beauty" of the true love he has for his friend.]
VIII. Recognition of Beautv (Sonnets 130, 127, 132, 128, 145)
Most commentators seem to agree that Sonnets 127-152...
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