Title

Why Analyze a Sonnet? Avoiding Presumption through Close Reading

Authors

Devon Madon, Illinois Mathematics and Science AcademyFollow

Document Type

Book Chapter

Publication Date

2019

Keywords

Shakespeare, pedagogy, ethics, sonnet, close reading, Jane Gallop

Disciplines

Applied Ethics | English Language and Literature | Literature in English, British Isles

Abstract

In the first session of my Introduction to Shakespeare course, I always teach one of Shakespeare's best-known sonnets: Sonnet 130, "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun:' I open with this sonnet because students frequently think that they know what the poem is about. W hen I ask the class, someone will usually give me the most common misreading of the sonnet: the speaker tells his mistress that she does not look like other women, but he loves her all the same. Rather than dismissing this reading, I ask many questions. How did you reach this conclusion? What do you already know about Shakespeare that leads you to this conclusion? What do you know about sonnets? I explain that this type of reading, which asks the reader to focus on "the main idea;' is something that we have all been trained to do. We project what we already know about a text onto our reading of that text.

Comments

From Reading to Healing, Why Analyze a Sonnet? Avoiding Presumption through Close Reading

“Copyright © 2019 The Kent State University Press. All rights reserved. Permission to include in repository granted by The Kent State University Press.”

http://www.kentstateuniversitypress.com/2018/from-reading-to-healing/

Recommended Citation

Madon, Devon. "Why Analyze a Sonnet? Avoiding Presumption through Close Reading." From Reading to Healing, edited by Susan Stagno and Michael Blackie, The Kent State University Press, 2019, pp. 3-16. DigitalCommons@IMSA, https://digitalcommons.imsa.edu/eng_pr/23/.