Mount Holyoke’s graduation was this last weekend. Bittersweet, as always. One of the students who went through the
graduation ceremony was a student of mine who actually finished in
December. She gave me a book when she
finished, and this seems like a Time Most Opportune to review it.
The book: William
Shakespeare, Sonnets
But, that’s actually the title on the back of the book. The title on the front of the book is in
letters which do not appear on my keyboard.
I suppose I could download some new fonts or something, but that seems
hardly worthwhile for a blog post.
The book is a Bulgarian translation of the Sonnets. And it was a funny experience reading
it. It has the poems in the original language
on the left hand page and the Bulgarian translations on the right hand
page. So I have now read Shakespeare in the
original (English, not Klingon) in a book with a Bulgarian translation. Alas, I can offer no evaluation of the
quality of the translation. I can say
with certainty that the translator did get the right number of lines, but
beyond that...well, I can’t even tell if it rhymes.
Does reading Shakespeare in a book with Bulgarian translations
improve the sonnets? (This is the sort
of question about which I know many Readers have been pondering for years.) I don’t know.
(Just think—you have been waiting your whole life to know, and that
is the answer you get…) This particular
volume was really fun to read; it is a very attractive little book. Reading only the left-hand pages was also a
bit of an interesting experience. But what
of the sonnets themselves?
Confession time: I
have a really hard time reading books of sonnets. I enjoy reading poetry, but there is something
in the back of my brain that demands some variety when reading books of
poetry. When I read a series of sonnets
in a row, my mind just goes numb.
Something about the repetitive cadence of the sonnet—over and over and
over and over and over and over and (I was going to write it 14 times, but even
typing it made my brain go numb). Any
given Shakespearian sonnet is really interesting—even the not-so-great ones are
relatively amazing. But reading 10
sonnets in a row…by the fifth one, my mind is completely elsewhere. It’s like listening to a metronome.
So, is this a critical failing? I like Shakespeare's sonnets. Some of them are among the best poems ever
written. In an anthology of poetry in which
the sonnets are mixed in with other types of poetry, I love reading the sonnets. But, in a volume of just the sonnets—well,
every time I have read Shakespeare’s sonnets as a whole, I have the same experience
of feeling like I am driving through Nevada, just hoping to get to Wells so at
least there will be some buildings to break the monotony. (And if you have ever seen Wells, Nevada, you’ll
know that this a serious sign of desperation.)
I have this nagging feeling that an inability to read 154
sonnets in a row with pleasure is a sign of cultural degeneracy. That makes me sad.
So, from an album to which I was listening earlier today, here
is a sad love song to capture the moment.
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