Shakespair: Sonnet Replies to the 154 Sonnets by William Shakespeare An Introduction by the Author, Martin Bidney
Shakespeare’s collection of short love poems called “Sonnets” offers a colorful kaleidoscope of bipolar moods and a suspenseful, inclusive dramatic plot involving three triangles of passionate lovers (MMF, MMF, and MMM). Martin Bidney answers the poet with 154 sonnet replies in a richly human dialogue. Just look at Sonnet Dialogue 20, and you’ll see what an unprecedented con-vers-ation this book offers. The Shakespeare narrator calls his boyfriend “Master-Mistress” and speculates that Nature was trying to create a woman but somehow got distracted and added an extra organ to the lovely female body. Since Nature “prick’d thee out for women’s pleasure,” not only the lyric speaker but men and women everywhere find this androgynous bisexual being immensely attractive. The dialogue collection is a series of verse interviews. But it also has the appeal of a TV series of episodes, or a psychological novel converted to a dramatic presentation. In high schools the text is rarely studied in its entirety, so nearly all context disappears for the young reader. It’s important to realize, one might think, that when the poet says, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate?” he’s talking to his boyfriend. The world of changing passions where the Shakespeare narrator thrives will mean that every relationship he has will be volatile, ranging from disillusion and sadness to confidence and hilarity. The entire diary or journal feels intensely real and personal: in the teasing Sonnet 135 the poet jokes cleverly about presenting the “real me,” so to speak, when he puns repeatedly on his name, “Will.”
Shakespeare’s Sonnets are one big story poem, with a startling plot. The speaker devotes the first 39 of the 154 lyrics chiefly to persuading his male friend to get married and have children, for such a handsome, likable man ought to leave an abundant biological legacy. The speaker is in love with the lady introduced in sonnet 40, and his gentleman friend is in love with her, too. How to love one of these friends without offending the other? Tensions grow, and no resolution is reached. Even so, the Sonnets are one of the best dramas the poet ever wrote. I’m a dialogic poet, carrying on a long tradition of friendly rivalry among verse writers. The best way to respond to a poem that won’t let go of you is to write another poem and try to make it worthy of the first. The Shakespeare narrator has a remarkably engaging charm because of his welcoming, inclusive attitudes toward human passion as it shapes a varied, worthwhile life. You won’t find anywhere a more LGBTQ+ friendly mindset than here with Will. Often I sum up a lyric from a new perspective. Or I’ll respond with parallel or contrasting memories and imaginings of my own. Poets, philosophers, mythic figures, musicians, or novelists may enter my replies. Psychological sidelights will be many. The possibilities revealed by the genre of lyrical response appear unlimited. There’s no better con-verse-ation partner than Shakespeare, who gave me a deep love for his favorite lyric form. Entering into it, I assumed a stranger-self, and it made a stranger me.
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