Journal | Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie occidentale
Journal issue | 49 | 2015
Research Article | «My Female Evil»
«My Female Evil»
The Subversive Nature of the Dark Lady Sonnets: a Reading of Sonnets 129 and 144
Abstract
Shakespeare’s opposition towards some aspects of Stoic and Neoplatonic doctrines and religious fanaticism, particularly Puritanism, can be found in many of his plays. However, rather than focusing on the dramatic output, this essay will concentrate on Shakespeare’s Sonnets. The strongly subversive nature of the Dark Lady section is especially notable, although modern critical opinion is generally less inclined to acknowledge its subversive philosophical message because of the supposedly more ‘personal’ nature of lyrical expression compared to the dramatic. In fact, critics have generally chosen to focus their attention on the Fair Youth section, more or less intentionally ignoring the Sonnets’ second part, summarily dismissed as an example of parodic inversion of the Petrarchan model, thus avoiding an examination of its profound revolutionary character, that is – an implicit rejection of the Christian and Neo-platonic basis of the sonnet tradition. Through a close reading of two highly meaningful sonnets, this essay will show that, in the poems dedicated to the Dark Lady, Shakespeare calls into question, through clear terminological reference, the very foundations of Christian and Neo-platonic thought – such as the dichotomous nature of creation, the supremacy of the soul over the body, the conception of sin et cetera – in order to show their internal inconsistencies, and to propose instead a new ontological paradigm, based on materialistic and Epicurean principles, that proclaims reality to consist of an indissoluble union of spirit and matter. This secular outlook, whilst not atheistic in the contemporary sense of the term, reveals the deep modernity of Shakespeare’s position, whilst also highlighting the difficulty that some readers still have with bard’s most ‘heretical’ side.
Published Sept. 1, 2015 | Language: en
Keywords Philosophical subversion • Shakespeare • Dark Lady • Sonnets
Copyright © 2015 Camilla Caporicci. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.14277/2499-1562/AnnOc-49-15-6
