Love Does Not Bend with the Remover to Remove

I chose my two favorite sonnets from Shakespeare. Sonnet 18 and 116. They are both fantastic in my opinion for their insight into (what I like to call) true love. 


To start with they both deal with time. An important feature of love, because I feel like in society nowadays love is viewed as ethereal or passing. Shakespeare clearly doesn't agree.

"Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom" (116)

"But thy eternal summer shall not fade, nor loose possession of that fair thou owest, nor shall death brag thou wanderest in his shade when in eternal lines to time though growest" (18)

Love does not pass or fall away but endures for a lifetime and more. It is very clear that Shakespeare hasn't been keeping up with the Kardashians lately because one of them got divorced after only a couple of months. The love he describes is so much richer and beautiful. I don't want it to simply be a thing of the past, but bring it forward and show people that it is possible today to still have that eternal love. (This feels a little more like a rant than I wanted it to, but I really do like these poems)

Shakespearean Comfort

In 7th grade, I read Macbeth. The full plot, the developed characters, the mastery of the English language just melted on my tongue and made my brain sing. I fell in love with Shakespeare then. I still have two quotes that I memorized for that class and a sonnet. "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out out brief candle life's but a walking shadow a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. . . " I could go on, but I won't. 

Along with Two semesters ago Shakespeare actually gave me the opportunity to make a lot of friends and create wonderfully lasting memories. I had the opportunity to be a part of BYU's production of Romeo and Juliet. It was incredible. I learned so much about how Shakespeare is to be performed and different ways to interpret and read his plays. That is where I got the name for my blog. I was Rosaline in Romeo and Juliet, a character rarely if never actually seen on stage. She isn't written into the stage directions, just talked about. So when creating the character I had little to go on, as I had no lines either. I did a lot of research into Shakespeare and was able to make a full character appear from what appeared to be nothing. I want to take that challenge with me as I delve into new characters. I want to see in Shakespeare interpretations that are not visible to the naked eye and use the extensive knowledge previously gathered on Shakespeare to see past the obvious into the unknown.