User:TimStandridge/number21

Number21
When I read Shakespeare’s Sonnet #21 at first I thought it was about inspiration. I then broke it down line by line and tried to translate it into something of a more modern poem. 1.	So is it not with me as with that muse, I read into it, 1b. Am I any different than a muse However thinking on it longer, I think he may have actually been inquiring if the object of his attention thought of him as any less or more than, another object of obsession. 2.	Stirr’d by a painted beauty to his verse, I read into it, 2b. A song writer inspired by a beautiful person in makeup, This part said a lot of things to me, and I feel it is very ambiguous; for starters who dos “His” apply too. Is it the song writer who is moved by an actor reciting words that he had written? Or perhaps the painted beauty caused the stirring that is in fact responsible for the writing. 3.	Who heaven itself for ornament doth use, I read into it, 3b. The muse being used by heaven for the definition of beauty itself. This line I think says that there is justification in thinking so highly of the muse’s beauty because heaven made it so. 4.	And every fair with his fair doth rehearse, I read into it, 4b. And those of this kind rehearse together, It is interesting to think that the click people attribute to high school is actually a form of socializing that has been around for a very long time. 5.	Making a couplement of proud compare’ I read into it, 5b. And when together they look better than others’ It may be that there is a certain implication that the separate individuals lose their luster when alone, but together they feed each other’s ego’s. I think it might be a way of saying when you are alone you are strange, but when everyone is doing something you can be as good as every one else. 6.	With sun and moon, with earth and sea’s rich gems, I read into it, 6b. for every time, and for important beings of everyplace, To me this was his way of alluding to the unimportance of when and where, putting the emphasis on the idea and not the specifics. 7.	With April’s first born flowers, and all things rare, I read into it, 7b. With new life so fragile, and so few, We talked a lot in class about how there was a lot of beautiful people should procreate themes in his writing, and sadly I think this is one of them. 8.	That heavens air in this huge rondure hems I read into it, 8b. That heaven is here contained in the now, Rondure is the only word I didn’t really know for sure, so I looked it up and it means round. It may be that he just means heaven reaches down to touch the edge of this world. 9.	O! let me, true in love, but truly write, I read into it, 9b. Though I am in love, let me write the truth, I liked this line to me it says, he is in love, but he knows there is something wrong with that love, whether it is an actual wrong or a perceived wrong, maybe even a spiritual wrongness that causes him grief. It says to me that he struggles to tell the truth of the matter in his writing. 10.	And then believe me, my love is as fair I read into it, 10b. In the truth of my writing see that my love is as fair Because he is struggling to write theses word’s, he is also struggling to be in love.

11.	As any mother’s child, though not so bright I read into it, 11b. Just like a child, loved but innocent To me it means you don’t have to be able to understand what love is intellectually, to know what it is emotionally, a baby knows its mothers love without understanding any concept of love. 12.	As those gold candles fix’d in heavens air: I read into it, 12b. The light that shines down from heaven I was kinda stretching on this one, im still not sure, it could be a reference to stars or the sun. 13.	Let them say more that like of hearsay well; I read into it, 13b. Let them talk This one truly is a tongue and brain twister, not sure if I got the right meaning, but it feels like he is building towards a declaration of statement to me. 14.	I will not praise that purpose not to sell. I read into it      14b. I will not encourage a course to change your mind. With that in mind let me say that I don’t know if anything I have said herein could even be true, but just my own opinion. Indeed who could suppose to understand the writing of someone so far removed from us. I think the Crux of it is that Shakespeare wanted to immortalize in writing certain aspects of mankind, but the real since of irony I get here is that if we can no longer understand what his true intent in writing things was, can you then say he was successful?