Internet safety: Whose job to teach kids about it?

Internet safety: Whose job to teach kids about it?

Posted using ShareThis

Sonnet Attack #123

How I attack, parse, chew and digest a sonnet (or any poem through the first read) is usually intuitive. Since I am female, I read Shakespeare's sonnets as a female and claim the emotions presented in each line unless there is something that jars within me. Why should I care if Sweet William was presenting himself as a lover or father figure to a man or a woman unless I am being judged for my historic analysis? Most of the time, for me, Sweet William's sonnets are songs of enjoyment or little toys - think rubrik's cube - to be turned inside out and reset with colored inflections.

Helping a student through an interpretation of Sonnet #123 in lieu of a performance, I found myself playing with the sonnet. I truly must be careful how I play this game with students, because I see patterns of images that are outside the box. Truly, I wonder how many scholars or pleasure readers link time's "pyramids" to Stonehedge or legal "registers" to tallies at a bridge game? Yes, Shakespeare was an astute business man, but there are many opportunities to list figures.

My student and I, also female, were discussing the dramatic recitation of Sonnet #123. Trying to loosen her up so she could relax into the game, I asked her to try a sultry voice. Her eyes widened while her analytical mind raced through the images of pyramids and historic measurements (registers) trying to find a hook on which to hang my request. "Sultry?" I responded that we are all seduced by Time, a frequent metaphor in literature, but this sonnet implies that the speaker is defying Time. Then I took my interpretation one step further. What is stronger, to argue or to attack? What attack is more effective against Time, combative or seductive?

I came home and checked my favorite tome, Helen Vendler's The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets. Nothing from Vendler contradicted me, which was reassuring, even though it did not jump into an analysis of images. She stated that, "Time always brings out the Latin side of Shakespeare, as his mind instinctively goes to Ovid [...]" (524). Linking phrases and specific words so my pencil practically imposed an geodesic dome over the sonnet, Vendler encouraged my game. Insinuating myself within Sweet William's head, I weighing the images: pyramid versus standing stone. Which evoked the truer, stronger, more exotic response? For the renaissance man, it was obvious. For me, I view his choice as evidence of his seduction by Time.

Playing with Time, I continue to ponder my own defiance.