SONNETCAST – William Shakespeare's Sonnets Recited, Revealed, Relived

• Sonnet 130: My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun

  With Sonnet 130, William Shakespeare, from the first, famous and oft-quoted line onwards, strikes a note possibly of defiance, possibly of satire, possibly both, subverting the traditional idolisation of a lover's object of desire through poetry and putting down a second powerful marker in quick succession that his mistress is different to other mistresses eulogised in sonnet form of then current fashion, not only but particularly because with her tan skin and black hair she doesn't fit the standard ideal of beauty of his day. In a tone that to us – and out context – sounds startlingly disparaging, he de-deifies and in doing so humanises her, and he once again asserts that both false beauty and false praise of beauty are not his style.

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  28:58
• Sonnet 129: Th'Expense of Spirit in a Waste of Shame

  Sonnet 129 is the most explicitly sexual, and therefore sexually explicit, poem in the collection so far, and it is the first to betray a deep unease on William Shakespeare's part with his own desire for his mistress. The language he employs to characterise the sexual act with her oscillates from ecstasy of expectation to post-coital depression, even disgust, with a vocabulary in-between that is reminiscent more of a war zone than of a romantic roll in the hay.

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  28:16
• Sonnet 128: How Oft When Thou, My Music, Music Playst

  With Sonnet 128, William Shakespeare employs the well-worn poetic trope of a lover who envies the musical instrument being played by his mistress its proximity to her and the delight of her touch. He either imagines or recalls watching her play a harpsichord or similar keyboard and wishes he could trade places with the keys that seem to be kissing her fingertips. But this not being possible, or – as he actually puts it – the keys enjoying themselves as much as they do, he suggests that she continue to allow the keys to kiss her fingers, while he should be allowed to kiss her lips.

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  26:52
• Sonnet 127: In the Old Age Black Was Not Counted Fair

  Sonnet 127 is the first of 26 poems in the 1609 collection which together are generally known as the Dark Lady Sonnets. While William Shakespeare himself never uses the expression 'Dark Lady' any more than he uses the term 'Fair Youth' in these sonnets, it is entirely clear from this sonnet onwards that this much shorter section concerns itself with a woman who has dark hair, dark eyes, and a complexion that is most likely tan or olive, as opposed to pale.The sonnet sets a tone that is ambiguous, somewhat distanced, perhaps slightly ironic, perhaps also quite sincere, but neither of these in an obvious, let alone straightforward way, and it establishes from the outset that the person our poet is now talking about is his 'mistress', and that she does not fit the hitherto or until recently accepted ideal of beauty. In fact, she represents, so the sonnet tells us, the exact opposite of what used to be considered beautiful, but although Shakespeare does not exactly sound overjoyed at her kind of beauty being recognised, he still values this genuine, natural beauty above the cosmetic artifice that apparently has now become the fashion.

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  26:31
• The Fair Youth

  In this special episode, Sebastian Michael looks at the first 126 Sonnets in the 1609 collection and examines the principal questions they present: - Is there a Fair Youth at all?- If so, is this the same young man throughout, or could it be that the first 17 poems, the Procreation Sonnets, are addressed to someone else?- And if there is a Fair Youth, who is it?While there will most likely never be answers that can be offered with cast-iron certainty, a detailed analysis of the textual and external evidence we have does yield significant pointers and offers an idea as to where, on a scale of plausibility, we may locate them.

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  1:02:43

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