My Favorite Poet

My favorite poet is William Shakespeare. You might say, “That’s cliche.” Okay, my favorite novelist is Leo Tolstoy. So, I’m full of them. My favorite book is the Bible. You got a problem with that? Lol.

No, but Shakespeare’s Sonnets are the best Epic Poem in the English Language. It’s Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy. It’s Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice, all wrapped up in a masterpiece. It’s just so beautiful… and you get to know Shakespeare, and his family dynamics.

Like, I just realized it was an epic poem one day—when reading through it. All the verses were linked, and they began to tell a story of Shakespeare, the Strafford Man, telling the story in the bargaining phase of grief.

First, William tells Hamnet to court a woman, and due to Hamnet’s half black skin tone—Anne Hathaway is black—he courts a woman, seduces her, and then he brags about her in public, and this angers her family. Finally, he receives a wound and is bedridden, while Shakespeare is lamenting his Hamnet’s love. That’s why Hamnet is love… but Hamnet was wounded, and he’s dying. And being Shakespeare’s technical slave—Hathaway was black, and therefore a concubine—he doesn’t care. He respects Hamnet as an equal, and Shakespeare is lamenting his fatherly advice to his son, to go out and find love. As, a mixed race child would be unwanted at that time period, and it added salt on the wound that Hamnet was bragging about seducing her. Finally, Hamnet dies, and Shakespeare visits the grave after it’s been tomb raided, and he sees the half decayed corpse of Hamnet. This is when his Muse had died. And he ends the play by whimsically parodying his strained relationship with Anne, and how he had no attraction to her whatsoever, but he still loved her.

Honestly, the Sonnets are the most brilliant part of Shakespeare. It’s his greatest masterpiece. His greatest tragedy, but also Comedy, as it ends with he and Anne.

©2022 B. K. Neifert

All Rights Reserved