argene

I'm reading Nothing Like the Sun, for my Race in Shakespeare class. It's supposed to be about Shakespeare's lovelife (by Anthony Burgess, the same guy who wrote A Clockwork Orange ) and its influence on the sonnets he wrote which center around his (romantic?) relationships with a "fair youth" and a "dark lady". I'm not feeling it. I don't know where this guy got his info-from letters written by Shakespeare? So I don't know whether to take it as just historical fiction, or something a bit more academic.

It was good to rest today. After I woke up, I watched - un-bespectalced - the light dance of the roof of the gothic building in front of me as the sun was setting.

Here is said sonnet (one of many I read). I got to read it in class Tuesday

My mistress's eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lip's red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun,
If hair be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
In some perfumes there is more delight
Than the breath with which my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know,
Music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground. And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.