Stalking has never been so iambic!

[felis_ultharus]

Okay, Shakespeare is really creepy. I can't believe it took me so long to notice.

I mean, it's not just the co-dependent 14-year-olds with their suicide pact (Romeo and Juliet).

I'm re-reading the sonnets right now, and about 126 of them are devoted to a young man who the poet is in love/in lust with. Shakespeare goes on and on about this guy's beauty, and about how he must reproduce to preserve that beauty in another generation. Shakespeare promises the young man immortality through his poetry, and the poet laments that he has a penis because the young man is heterosexual. Then he goes on some more about the guy's beauty.

I was trying to imagine how a straight man would react to 126 poems from another man obsessing over his beauty, and whether or not he reproduces and generates good-looking children. The words "restraining order" came to mind.

On a less ethereal plane, I seem to have developed a minor peanut allergy. So far, it's nothing dangerous, but I've heard these things can get worse with repeat exposure, so I'm going to have to be careful to avoid things with nuts in them :/

Comments

Don't knock my Billy-boy

[em-fish.livejournal.com]

Listen dude, writing poems is a far cry from peeking in windows and stealing toenail clippings.
For all you know, those poems were his way of keeping himself from doing something actually stalker-ish.

nyah. :p

Re: Don't knock my Billy-boy

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

True. But it's also possible he was peeking in windows and stealing toenail clippings, too. We just don't know :p

We do know that most of the poems were only published four years before his death, many years after they were likely written, and there's no sign that Shakespeare had a hand in the publication.

A Mr. "WH" is described by the publisher as the "begetter" of the sonnets, though the author is Shakespeare, and many think that would be a Mr. W Hughes or W. Hews because of certain puns -- including in sonnet 20.

If WH is the man he's obsessing over, then it's possible Shakespeare sent him the sonnets, and WH published them -- maybe to embarrass him? How would Shakespeare have reacted to someone publishing these poems without his permission...?

[jc2004.livejournal.com]

I think in the olden days, since there were no restraining orders, people just tolerated it if the stalker was famous and if the stalker wasn't, they probably just killed them.

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

Makes sense. Though this was his early stuff, so he may not have been famous yet, and he seems to have survived to write his plays...

Perhaps WH was just one of those too-nice-for-their-own-good-type people...?