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- Publisher
- University of North Carolina Press
- Copyright
- Copyright © 2004 The University of North Carolina Press.
- ISSN
- 1543-0383
Abstract
Hoarding the Treasure and Squandering the Truth: Giving and Possessing in Shakespeare’s Sonnets to the Young Man by Alison V. Scott Not marble nor the gilded monuments Of princes shall outlive this pow’rful rhyme, But you shall shine more bright in these contènts Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time. (55.1–4) HE speaker of the Sonnets promises his addressee immortality, an everlasting fame for his gifts of beauty and virtue, achieved T via the speaker’s gift for poetry and conferred through the gift of the poem he produces. Of course, the most immediate problem with this promise is that the Sonnets never actually name the ‘‘young man’’ to whom the majority are addressed, and therefore, the only personality to ‘‘shine more bright in these contents’’ of the poems is the poet him- self. So it is that the Sonnets revert to the possession of their author, and the gift which they promise their subject and addressee is, in fact, ac- corded to Shakespeare himself. Though the poems became public prop- erty upon publication, they remain inseparable from Shakespeare; and, though they have been given as love gifts throughout time, they belong to nobody and continue to be given and
Journal
Studies in Philology – University of North Carolina Press
Published: Jul 9, 2004