DECONSTRUCTED SHAKESPEAREAN SONNETS



Sonnet 31

Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts
Which I by lacking have supposed dead;
And there reigns Love, and all Love's loving parts,
And all those friends which I thought buried.
How many a holy and obsequious tear
Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye,
As interest of the dead, which now appear
But things remov'd that hidden in thee lie!
Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,
Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,
Who all their parts of me to thee did give,
That due of many now is thine alone:
Their images I lov'd I view in thee,
And thou--all they--hast all the all of me.


It seems that a white male is extolling a womyn's bosom. But Shakespeare was gay, so he's really talking about a boy, since "bosom" and "boy" both begin with "bo." The boy is "endeared with all hearts" which means he is being oppressed by the testicular rules of the aristocratic British males. Notice "hearts" is really "hear" as in "hear me, i'm oppressed, i'm oppressed," verified by the next line "which I by lacking" meaning that Shakespeare also is lacking political representation. "And there reigns Love" is his solution; he wants to overthrow the patriarchy and establish a communitarian regime based on love and tolerance like Al Gore. But religion makes him cry because it's the aristocracy's enforcement of this evil non-egalitarianism. "Thou art the grave where buried love doth live..." means that if the boy could get his consciousness raised to his oppression, he could bring about a revolution, along with all the goodies that come with it, like free marijuana and phone sex. "All the all of me" means he will die for the worldwide destruction of imperialism and the establishment of Starbucks all over the globe.



Sonnet 107

Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul
Of the wide world dreaming on things to come,
Can yet the lease of my true love control,
Suppos'd as forfeit to a confin'd doom.
The mortal moon hath her eclipse endur'd,
And the sad augurs mock their own presage;
Incertainties now crown themselves assur'd,
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.
Now with the drops of this most balmy time
My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes,
Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rime,
While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes:
And thou in this shalt find thy monument,
When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent.


There's a "U" in true and forfeit begins with "FO", so he's afraid of dying before UFOs land and bring us peace and love forever.



Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st;
So long as man can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.


Obviously he read Al Gore's "Earth in the Balance." Here he compares his lover to the choking environment that is soon to be destroyed thanks to the Republicans. His lover is "more lovely and more temperate" than a summer's day because of all the smog in England. "Rough winds" indicates the nature goddess' fury at Anglo-Saxon males. "Too hot" represents the global warming that began in the 17th century. "Gold complexion dimmed" indicates the haze that blocks the sunshine. "Eternal summer" is what we're gonna have if we don't elect a Democrat in 2004. "So long as man can breathe"... need he say more about impending doom?



Sonnet 25

Let those who are in favour with their stars
Of public honour and proud titles boast,
Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars,
Unlook'd for joy in that I honour most.
Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread
But as the marigold at the sun's eye,
And in themselves their pride lies buried,
For at a frown they in their glory die.
The painful warrior famoused for fight.
After a thousand victories once foil'd,
Is from the book of honour razed quite,
And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd:
Then happy I, that love and am belov'd,
Where I may not remove nor be remov'd.


As a member of a marginalized community, he feels justifiably angered by the unfair power structure, and sarcastically says "let them of public honour and proud titles boast." He has a wonderfully developed class consciousness long before Marx came along. He complains of princes and their boastful pride and warriors who fight and are forgotten later on, because nobody cares except for testosterone-driven WASPs. He then rationalizes that he is happy that he can't be in power by saying and that he loves and is loved, obviously taken by the opium of religion. If he only listened to Chairman Mao who said "power grows out of a barrel of a gun" or something like that, then he would have been happy because money and power buy happiness.



Sonnet 54

O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour which doth in it live.
The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye
As the perfumed tincture of the roses,
Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly
When summer's breath their masked buds discloses:
But, for their virtue only is their show,
They live unwoo'd, and unrespected fade;
Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;
Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made:
And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
When that shall vade, my verse distils your truth.


This is the cause of anorexia for womyn everywhere! Although he's gay, it is written with the assumption that a non-empowered womyn is receiving these insults. He's a typical male, even for a queer. Treating womyn as though they were plants with perty petals is the patriarchy's greatest weapon. He must have been paid to write this by Jerry Falwell.