Sonnets

Outreach Director Caroline Brent on the Sonnets: 

When Elizabeth and I were first planning this showcase, we knew that we wanted it to be about strength. Most of our choices in sonnets focus on overcoming obstacles, Sonnet 66 especially. Sonnet 66 is an expression of the trials and tribulations one has to forge through in order to do what one loves. The line “And simple truth miscalled simplicity” has always stuck out to me because it carries so much weight. I think that there are plenty of simple truths out there that are incredibly complicated. Some of the simplest things, like telling someone you love them, are often the most complex and the most difficult to say. I think sometimes as a woman in the arts it is easy to be pigeonholed or compartmentalized, and we are always striving to break out of that. We need to show people all of the layers and facets that we as artists bring to our work.

 Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,
As, to behold desert a beggar born,
And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,
And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
And guilded honour shamefully misplaced,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
And strength by limping sway disabled,
And art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly doctor-like controlling skill,
And simple truth miscall'd simplicity,
And captive good attending captain ill:
   Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,
   Save that, to die, I leave my love alone. 

Sonnet 140 really stood out to us because of its emphasis on teaching and learning and the blurred line between the two. The final line pulls everything together – you have to be strong and continue on while still carrying an awareness of the world around you, even if your path ends up being very narrow. We all face times when we feel that “this ill-wresting world is grown so bad”, but what is most important is that we do not forget all the spirit and joy that remains close by.

Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press
My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain;
Lest sorrow lend me words and words express
The manner of my pity-wanting pain.
If I might teach thee wit, better it were,
Though not to love, yet, love, to tell me so;
As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,
No news but health from their physicians know;
For if I should despair, I should grow mad,
And in my madness might speak ill of thee:
Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,
Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be,
That I may not be so, nor thou belied,
Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.