I always thought the sonnets a fascinating study of lovers and friends. Sure that couplet is a advertisment for the powers of the poet, but I think when you look at the whole range of the sonnets you see at least two distinct women. One of them a youthful picture of beauty, the other darker, probably aloof, seemingly cruel or scornful of his inexperience, and these are the more interesting to me, where the young lover learns some lessons and does not always return "wiser" but often simply angrier.
Good good stuff that has lead scholars on all sorts of wild conjectures over "Who is Shakespeare?" or his possible love/married life. Of course we can't help ourselves, as utterly addicted to biography as we've become, but in the end that might not be as interesting as the messages themselves.
The first sight may be lovely, but it changes too.
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just ask giant about the first time he looked in a mirror...
Good good stuff that has lead scholars on all sorts of wild conjectures over "Who is Shakespeare?" or his possible love/married life. Of course we can't help ourselves, as utterly addicted to biography as we've become, but in the end that might not be as interesting as the messages themselves.
The first sight may be lovely, but it changes too.