Day 54 - Sonnet #41: betrayal, justifications, beauty, restraint, accusations

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One cool note I didn't mention - in line 8, there is debate over whether it's "he" or she" in the phrase "have prevailed" - definitely an interesting point, and really cool how it shifts the power based on which pronoun one uses. Onto the sonnet!



Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits,
When I am sometime absent from thy heart,
Thy beauty, and thy years full well befits,
For still temptation follows where thou art.
Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won,
Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assailed.
And when a woman woos, what woman's son,
Will sourly leave her till he have prevailed?
Ay me, but yet thou mightst my seat forbear,
And chide thy beauty, and thy straying youth,
Who lead thee in their riot even there
Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth:
Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee,
Thine by thy beauty being false to me.

As always - feedback, comments and creativity are welcome!

Day 53 - Sonnet #70: defence, accusations, slander, beauty, suspicion

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That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect,
For slander's mark was ever yet the fair,
The ornament of beauty is suspect,
A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air.
So thou be good, slander doth but approve,
Thy worth the greater being wooed of time,
For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,
And thou present'st a pure unstained prime.
Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days,
Either not assailed, or victor being charged,
Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,
To tie up envy, evermore enlarged,
If some suspect of ill masked not thy show,
Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe.

As always - feedback, comments and creativity are welcome!

Day 52 - Sonnet #18: power, beauty, immortality, sun, seasons

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Lots of content today! Hope you enjoy!

My buddy Drew with the Shakespeare Everywhere Project:




Some guy named Simon:




Some guy named John:




Musical version:




Sonnet Rap:




Animated Film:




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 dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

As always - feedback, comments and creativity are welcome!

Day 51 - Sonnet #22: love, age, death, reflection, heart

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Sonnet Challenge friend Mike Ackerman! (some of his other videos appear here)




Great interpretation, plus a quick Hamlet piece:




On the lake:




Reading, with a cat:



My glass shall not persuade me I am old,
So long as youth and thou are of one date,
But when in thee time's furrows I behold,
Then look I death my days should expiate.
For all that beauty that doth cover thee,
Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,
Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me,
How can I then be elder than thou art?
O therefore love be of thyself so wary,
As I not for my self, but for thee will,
Bearing thy heart which I will keep so chary
As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.
Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain,
Thou gav'st me thine not to give back again.

As always - feedback, comments and creativity are welcome!

January Sonnet Schedule & Update

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We made it to 50 sonnets - so cool! Here's a quick video update:




And now the schedule for the first month of 2011 - let's get our sonnets ON!

Week of January 3rd: 22

Week of January 10th: 18

Week of January 17th: 70

Week of January 24th: 41

As always - feedback, comments and creativity are welcome!

Day 50 - Sonnet #53: shadow, ideal, beauty, substance

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And another version - sweet!



What is your substance, whereof are you made,
That millions of strange shadows on you tend?
Since every one, hath every one, one shade,
And you but one, can every shadow lend:
Describe Adonis and the counterfeit,
Is poorly imitated after you,
On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set,
And you in Grecian tires are painted new:
Speak of the spring, and foison of the year,
The one doth shadow of your beauty show,
The other as your bounty doth appear,
And you in every blessed shape we know.
In all external grace you have some part,
But you like none, none you for constant heart.

As always - feedback, comments and creativity are welcome!

Day 49 - Sonnet #113: personification, absence, nature, transmutation, mind, eye

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And a couple visual interpretations for this one - very cool!





Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind,
And that which governs me to go about,
Doth part his function, and is partly blind,
Seems seeing, but effectually is out:
For it no form delivers to the heart
Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch,
Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,
Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch:
For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight,
The most sweet favour or deformed'st creature,
The mountain, or the sea, the day, or night:
The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature.
Incapable of more, replete with you,
My most true mind thus maketh mine eye untrue.

As always - feedback, comments and creativity are welcome!