The student begins his essay with the words "Shakespeares sonnet's are notoriously difficult to interpret". I am forced to disregard his statement - I disagree that Shakespeare's sonnets are notoriously difficult to interpret - because I need to focus on the fact that he specifically didn't employ the apostrophe in the possessive, yet he made it a point to employ an apostrophe in the middle of the plural. Sadly, in a group of over 30 teenagers who are native speakers of English, I find this is an unexpectedly common problem. "Anglo teens notoriously can't spell".
That said, some of them had some very interesting views on Shakespeare's sonnet 18 (Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?), this one kid included. Many of them zeroed in on how Shakespeare is referring to art as the aesthetic vehicle for posterity, and a few of them even pointed out the sonnet's championing of ageism - only young people can truly be beautiful - and physical beauty over any other standard. And this before we discussed sonnet 130 (My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun) and its frontal attack on these very standards, which were already dated in the 17th century.
So much for a Wednesday morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment