We have used this sonnet as a song for the Moby Dick album, mainly to mark a change of direction in the story. The point, where the story turns from an enthusiastic traveller story into a dark and evil scenery of seduction and anyone who took part falls into a deadly tragedy.
Like the paintings the Sonnet is illustrating the fragile and passing time we have in the small interval between birth and death.
William Shakespeare
Born April 23, 1564 – died April 23, 1616
was an English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer of the English language, as well as one of the greatest in Western literature, and the world's pre-eminent dramatist.
He wrote about thirty-eight plays and 154 sonnets, as well as a variety of other poems. Already a popular writer in his own lifetime, Shakespeare's reputation became increasingly celebrated after his death and his work adulated by numerous prominent cultural figures through the centuries.
In addition, Shakespeare is the most quoted writer in the literature and history of the English-speaking world. He is often considered the English, or arguably the British, national poet and is sometimes referred to as the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "The Bard") or the "Swan of Avon".
Shakespeare's works have been translated into every major living language, and his plays are continually performed all around the world.
The Sonnets
Shakespeare's sonnets are a collection of 154 poems that deal with such themes as love, beauty, and mortality. All but two first appeared in the 1609 publication entitled Shakespeare's Sonnets; numbers
138 ("When my love swears that she is made of truth") and
144 ("Two loves have I, of comfort and despair")
had previously been published in a 1599 miscellany entitled The Passionate Pilgrim. The Sonnets were written over a number of years, probably beginning in the early 1590s. The conditions under which the sonnets were published are unclear.
Links
British Shakespeare Society
Shakespeare at Project Gutenberg.net
Shakespeare-Oxford Society
German Shakespeare Society
