Shakespeare's 9th Sonnet (Hardcore Analysis) (Patreon)

Shakespeare's ninth sonnet may tell us more about the writer's concerns, and our concerns, than those of the Fair Youth. 

Today we're discussing the fear of mortality, hypothetical widows, Shakespeare's world language, and whether Shakespeare is truly trying to persuade this young man to settle down. 

Video Timestamps:

• 0:00 is the procreation sequence persuasive?
• 1:45 'Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye...?'
• 3:00 appreciating sonnet nine together 
• 4:00 wrangling with loss, grief, and pain
• 4:57 speaking to another as though they are us
• 6:00 Shakespeare on life after death 
• 6:40 the soul of the observer
• 8:00 meditating on mortality and mourning
• 10:50 Shakespeare's world language 
• 11:50 lacking one who will lack us 
• 12:50 over-alliteration & theatricality 
• 14:00 Shakespeare's sonnets & the human condition
• 15:40 the preoccupation with waste 
• 17:20 your thoughts on sonnet nine 

Sonnet IX

Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye,
That thou consum'st thy self in single life?
Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die,
The world will wail thee like a makeless wife;
The world will be thy widow and still weep
That thou no form of thee hast left behind,
When every private widow well may keep
By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind:
Look what an unthrift in the world doth spend
Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;
But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,
And kept unused the user so destroys it.
No love toward others in that bosom sits
That on himself such murd'rous shame commits.

Shakespeare's Sonnets Project

• Sonnet I
• Sonnet II
• Sonnet III
• Sonnet IV
• Sonnet V
• Sonnet VI
• Sonnet VII
• Sonnet VIII 

Questions for you:

1) What kind of man do you think Shakespeare was?

2) Do you find this to be a persuasive sonnet? Where would it rank among the sonnets you've enjoyed so far?

Happy sonneteering!