Latest news with #Sonnet116
Saba Yemen
05-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Saba Yemen
Britain.. Original Sonetih of William Shakespeare Found in Oxford Library
London - Saba: English language professor Leah Veronese found a manuscript copy of William Shakespeare's Sonnet No. 116 in a collection of texts dating back to the seventeenth century, and it differs slightly from the original version. Veronese discovered, while conducting research in the old Bodleian Library at Oxford University, an amazing poem dating back to the seventeenth century. It soon turned out that it was a manuscript copy of a musical adaptation of William Shakespeare's Sonnet 116. The adapted version differs from the original at the beginning and end, and contains additional lines. Veronese said: "These additional lines may have been used to lengthen the song or to express political motives." It is worth noting that early modern poetry was often distributed in written collections, and in this case, as the research showed, the collection also contained several original poems by the poet Elias Ashmole. However, when one of his poems was examined by Dr. Veronese, it turned out to be a strange copy of Sonnet 116. The catalogue accompanying the collection was only prepared in the 19th century. It turned out that the description of the works in the collection was not accurate. The poem itself was not described accurately, as it was classified in the catalogue as a work "On the Constancy of Love". In addition, Shakespeare was not mentioned in the catalogue. For this reason, the manuscript, which turned out to be a copy of Sonnet 116, remained undiscovered for many years. Moreover, it turned out that the discovered manuscript represents a modified version of Shakespeare's sonnet, which differs from the original sonnet. This means that we can now read additional lines that we did not know about before.
New York Times
04-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Not Time's Fool: A Rare Version of a Shakespeare Sonnet Is Discovered
If you have already had the good fortune of encountering 'Sonnet 116' by William Shakespeare, you were probably at a wedding. It is not, by most accounts, a sexy poem. It is not exactly a happy one, either. Instead, it celebrates commitment to devotion: 'Love's not time's fool,' perhaps its most famous phrase, is held up as a toast to living together and aging together. It is one of the poems that, however often it is read aloud, still pricks tear ducts and quiets fidgets. But during the English Civil Wars in the mid-1600s, the poem may have had a different resonance. That's, at least, according to research published last month in The Review of English Studies by an Oxford researcher, Leah Veronese, who found a rare, handwritten version in an archive. Such discoveries are rare. 'It's incredibly exciting when somebody finds any manuscript trace of Shakespeare's poems,' said a Columbia University professor, James Shapiro, an expert on Shakespeare who was not involved in the find. And experts are celebrating the discovery as an early example of the ways that Shakespeare's work has been adapted to meet a charged moment. 'Shakespeare has always been political,' Professor Shapiro said, adding, 'People repurposed it in their own day — as in ours — for different political ends.' This variation — which has a different opening, ending and seven additional lines — reads more as a celebration of political loyalty than romantic love. It may come from one of the greatest upheavals in British history: A fight between royalists (who supported the monarchy) and parliamentarians (who did not). For a brief period, Britain was not ruled by a monarch. Much suggests that the newly discovered version was a royalist adaptation. Dr. Veronese discovered the variant in the papers of Elias Ashmole, a supporter of the monarchy who was born in 1617 — the year after Shakespeare died. It was among other politically charged works, which included banned Christmas carols and satirical poems from the 1640s. And it had been set to music by the composer Henry Lawes, which can be found in the New York Public Library. That alone would have been rebellious: The Republican regime banned the public performance of songs, Oxford said in a news release published on Monday. 'What was once a kind of erotic, playful love poem,' Professor Shapiro said, had 'been repurposed to speak to people in the midst of a civil war — in which their loved ones are fighting and dying.' Consider the opening lines of 'Sonnet 116': The nod to 'marriage' might be why it's a favorite at weddings, said Prof. Michael Dobson, the director of the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon, who was not involved in the discovery. But the commitment to loving someone forever, just as they are, also resonates. 'It makes an implausible vow of eternal constancy, which is what marriages are all about,' said Professor Dobson, who has 'love's not time's fool' etched into his wedding band. The opening of the variation reads as much more righteous — almost scolding — instead of musing. Practically, the additional lines were added to create more singable verses, according to Oxford. But in the context of the civil wars, the Oxford release said, 'the additional lines could also be read as an appeal toward religious and political loyalty.' Could the self-blinding error have been the push to leave the monarchy behind? Are the parliamentarians the minds who were making such false appeals? Professor Dobson noted that the language of devotion is often similar, whether applied to love or politics. 'You know: 'my king — right or wrong — I will die a royalist,'' he said, describing both versions as odes to 'eternal, quixotic constancy.' He said it was not clear whether the poem was a copy of a draft written by Shakespeare or an adaptation written by someone else. Either way, the discovery shows how Shakespeare's work found life in the years after his death. For Shakespeare scholars, it suggests that the sonnets had more sticking power than many had once thought. Shakespeare's sonnets were published in 1609. The collection barely sold, Professor Dobson said, noting, 'The printed copy of Shakespeare's sonnets was probably Shakespeare's biggest flop.' A 1640 version — altered to expunge hints of a male lover — barely caused a ripple. In fact, he said, the sonnets did not become popular until the late 1700s, when interest surged in the bard's life and Romanticism reigned. Some scholars had thought that, for the first two centuries, the sonnets were all but forgotten. The new discovery suggests otherwise, Professor Dobson said. 'At least one person thought this was a worthwhile piece of work.' Perhaps, the variation is a sign of what may be Shakespeare's greatest constant: change. So even if love, at least in 'Sonnet 116,' is 'an ever-fixèd mark,' the author himself is not. That, it seems, has always been his power, from the Royalist gatherings of 1600s Britain to the political fights and wedding speeches of today.
BBC News
04-03-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Shakespeare sonnet copy from 17th century found by Oxford researcher
A rare hand-written copy of one of the most famous love poems ever written has been discovered after hundreds of Leah Veronese uncovered the version of William Shakespeare's Sonnet 116 tucked away in a 17th-century poetry collection at the University of manuscript was found among the papers of Elias Ashmole, founder of Oxford's Ashmolean Emma Smith, an Oxford expert in Shakespeare, said the "exciting discovery" would help researchers understand the Bard's popularity in the decades following his death. Dr Veronese found the sonnet featured in a miscellany - a type of manuscript which contains a selection of texts from different authors on various subjects - stored at the Bodleian Library."As I was leafing through the manuscript, the poem struck me as an odd version of Sonnet 116," the university researcher explained."When I looked in the catalogue (originally compiled in the nineteenth century) the poem was described, not inaccurately, as "on constancy in love" – but it doesn't mention Shakespeare." In Ashmole's version, parts of Sonnet 116 - also known as Let me not to the marriage of true minds - have been altered, and additional lines Veronese said she thought the changed first line and the lack of mention of Shakespeare were the reasons "why this poem has passed un-noticed as a copy of Sonnet 116 all these years".The sonnet sits in the miscellany alongside "politically charged" works from the 1640s - the decade of the English Civil War, fought between Royalists and was a strong supporter of the monarchy, and the lines added to the sonnet could be read as an appeal towards religious and political loyalty. The added lines "potentially transform" the sonnet from "a meditation on romantic love into a powerful political statement", researchers Smith said: "Let me not to the marriage of true minds is now one of Shakespeare's most famous sonnets, but it doesn't seem to have been very popular in his own time.""What Dr Veronese shows in her investigation of this new version is that the sonnet being understood in the context of Royalist politics – a long way from its role in modern weddings," she added. You can follow BBC Oxfordshire on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.
