Shakespearan Sonnets: Ideal Love Songs

When looking at our reading assignment for this week, I was extremely pleased to see that we would be reading Shakespearean sonnets. Over winter session, I went abroad to London on the English/Theatre program. A majority of the course focused on Shakespeare's plays and I was fortunate enough to see both King Lear and Hamlet performed at various London theatres. One of my assignments was to memorize a sonnet and analyze each and every line of it so I could truly understand its meaning and appreciate every word. At first, I found this assignment to be tedious more than anything else, but soon realized how much more the sonnet spoke to me once I had a chance to digest all of it. This previous assignment definitely helped when it came time to read all of the sonnets for this week. I was able to recall some of the sonnets my classmates had memorized, along with my own sonnet, and remembered some of the close reading I had done which helped me better understand Shakespeare and his work.
The one aspect of Shakespeare's sonnets that immediately captures my attention is the raw emotion that is expressed. Unlike any other author I have been exposed to, Shakespeare seems to write exactly how he feels about a loved one in the purest and most elquoent way possible. The love sonnets that he writes would surely have any girl fall to her knees and the sonnets where he is asking for forgiveness would be difficult to refuse. They are the ideal love songs.
Sonnet 116 caught my attention while going through the first pass of the reading. During my second pass, I spent extra time on this sonnet since the first couple of lines, "Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments; love is not love which alters when it alteration finds," caught my attention. This sonnet explains, based on the narrator's point of view, what love is and what love is not. Those first several lines talk about how love is contant and never changes. Regardless of what happens between the couple or them as individual people, the love that the narrator feels for the other will never change. Lines 9-10, "Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle's compass come," explains that love is not a time limit feeling, but will continue on forever. Even though rosy lips and cheeks may fade, the love that the narrator has for the other will remain regardless of the outer appearances. The couplet, "If there be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved," challenges the reader. The narrator is so confident of what he says and how he feels that he challenges the reader to prove him wrong. The narrator knows that true love is what he speaks of in this particular sonnet and that he cannot be proven wrong otherwise.
Many of the other sonnets that Shakespeare wrote end in much of the same way. Personally, it leaves me thinking and wondering if anyone would ever challenge the narrator of the feelings that they feel. While reading thru all of the sonnets I felt as though I was reading thru the stages of someone's rollercoaster of emotions. Each sonnet speaks of a different feeling so very strongly it is hard not to get sucked in and picture yourself being the person that is saying the very words on the page.

Taylor Swift's "Fearless" Album

When given this Wildcard assignment for the week, this was the first artist and album that popped into my head. Even though I see Taylor Swift as too fragile or sensitive sometimes, I think her songs are extremely catchy and easy for young girls to relate to. Her album, "Fearless" is all about love. Many of the songs she has written actually include the names of her exboyfriends or real situations that she has found herself in. The first song of the album is the same as the title - "Fearless." This song starts off talking about a young girl who is nervous and timid about love, yet when she is around the person that she feels most comfortable with she suddenly becomes fearless of anything. To start off the album like this, it is obvious that the song writer has a positive outlook on love and being a young girl, has many love stories to look forward to.
As the songs of the album continue, Swift starts to sing about specific instances in her life or in the lives of people close to her and their experiences with love. The second song of the album "Fifteen" talks about a fifteen year old girl who is very naive when it comes to boys and love. This connects to the album title again since this teenager is fearless when thinking about love, she is willing to believe anyone who says that they feel something for her. The girl, Abigail, mentioned in this song was acutally Swift's friend when she was younger and they both had the same thoughts about their high school boyfriends - they would end up together. The song goes on to say that looking back, the song writer wishes she knew what she knew now since not everything is so important as it seems when you are fifteen. In general, I think that many people can relate to this. In high school I always felt that little arguments or friendships were so much bigger and greater than they actually were.
The songs throughout the middle of the album are all related to the greater things about love. Some popular songs include, "Love Story," "Hey Stephen," "You Belong With Me," and "Breathe." I thought that placing "You Belong With Me" before "Breathe" was very clever, since the messages of both songs can be intertwined. The first, "You Belong With Me" is a young girl singing about how the popular boy at school is with the wrong type of girl. The singer wants him to notice her, but instead he is involved with a popular girl at school. "Breathe" is a song talking about how without that specific person in your life you feel as though you cannot get any air. Perhaps the song writer placed these two songs one after another because the person that he/she longs to be with does not notice them and makes them feel as though they cannot live without them. Again, this is a feeling that can be relatable to many young boys and girls since at a young age we all have feelings for someone else that are not reciprocated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuNIsY6JdUw

Towards the end of the album, we see the heartbreak that Swift has experienced with the song "Forever and Always." This song talks about a boy who promised to always be there for her, yet broke her heart in the end. The song writer is left confused and hurt by the break up. The very last song of the album is called "Change." This is definitely a different tone than from the first song, "Fearless." At this point, the song writer has gone through all of the emotions one can feel when experiencing love and has come out on the other side a changed person. She now sees that being fearless when entering love can cause pain, but that pain can sometimes make you stronger.