Talk:Sonnet 18

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	Sonnet 18 has been listed as one of the Language and literature good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
October 5, 2007 Good article nominee Listed

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Contents 1 Neutrality 1.1 Agree 2 "carries the meaning of a Petrarchan Sonnet" 3 Good article 4 Capitalism 5 Audio file

[edit] Neutrality

I'm in awe over the strong assertion this article makes that the addressee of this poem is the Earl, without any references. This needs to be balanced more, and/or referenced. Also, the language could be more neutral ("disregarding"). It makes anyone who reads the poem differently sound like an idiot, when in fact many many people read it the other way. While this may not be the right way to interpret it historically, a formalist or a reader-response criticism can easily read it this way and not be wrong. Wrad 22:03, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Agree

I'm in the midst of a heavy copy-edit of this article, and the Earl-reference is already gone. I'm leaving the NPOV-fix until last if you'd like to have a go. Jlhughes 20:22, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "carries the meaning of a Petrarchan Sonnet"

You said in a comment that this confused you. I can see that it needs more explanation. How can I make it clearer? (I restored the line and ref because the ref is used later in the article, but I kept your comment.) Wrad 22:37, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps I could say it has many similarities in subject matter and use of metaphor to a Petrarchan sonnet, although in form it is a Shakespearean sonnet. Wrad 22:40, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Good article

This article is well written and meets all of the GA criteria. I thought the lead section was a particularly good summary. regards, Johnfos 10:39, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Capitalism

I think that explaining Shakespeare's references to money in terms of capitalism is problematic. Firstly, the word capitalism may not be the best term for 16th century economy: the word Mercantilism might be more appropriate, and money was clearly important in pre-capitalist systems as well, including Feudalism. Secondly, the sentence sounds to me as if someone is trying to impose some political agenda onto Shakespeare - and a reference to a published article (out of the millions of articles that have been published about Shakespeare) doesn't really justify this. --RichardVeryard (talk) 14:12, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I changed it to "budding capitalistic" instead of just capitalistic, since that's what the article says. You're right, capitalism didn't become dominant until about a century later. As for the POV stuff, I disagree. The article referenced isn't at all extreme, and the fact is, Shakespeare did live in a budding capitalistic society, and used terms and analogies from that society in his poems. To change the language away from the reference would be OR. This isn't just a published article, it's a peer-reviewed article, which means it has been reviewed by peers for POV and other things. It isn't extreme in any way. Lastly, although there are millions of articles about Shakespeare, there aren't many about Sonnet 18, and this was one of the best I could find. If you can find better, be my guest. Wrad (talk) 16:37, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Audio file

Is it possible to obtain a more pleasant reading of this sonnet? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.245.147.196 (talk) 01:16, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I recorded that one myself with my cheap microphone in my cheap apartment. If you have better gear, by my guest. Wrad (talk) 02:56, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think the anon is criticising the quality of the recording. My guess is that they're commenting on how utterly lifeless you made one of the most wonderful pieces of English literature sound! I have re-recorded it myself, and I will upload it now. – PeeJay 04:10, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliment, but it was better than nothing. If nothing else, at least I drove you to make a better copy. Are you willing to be on call for future recordings of sonnets? Wrad (talk) 16:03, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry I sounded a bit callous with my previous comment. I just read it back to myself and I realised how much of an arse I sounded. Anyway, I would be willing to record readings of other sonnets in the future, if I can figure out how to increase the volume of my recordings using Audacity. – PeeJay 17:33, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I can do that. Maybe just send the file to me? I used audacity for my copy :) Wrad (talk) 17:53, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I didn't actually save the file as an AUP file, so I might have to re-record it. However, if that's not necessary, I uploaded the OGG file here as Sonnet18.ogg. – PeeJay 18:35, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

That should work fine. Wrad (talk) 19:00, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

If I were you, I might run through the sonnets here and make recordings for those whose articles are a little more developed. We might as well do it in one big push. Wrad (talk) 19:01, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I'll give that a go at some point, but probably not for a few days now. Got an exam on Friday, you see. Also, these readings depend very much on interpretation of the sonnet, so it might take me a while to get the feel of each one. Finally, just out of interest, what do you think of my reading of Sonnet 18? – PeeJay 19:54, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Fine with me. I'm just glad someone else's come along to help out. I like your reading. I was really tired when I did mine. I'll just see if I can make yours louder and take out the hissing. Wrad (talk) 19:57, 23 January 2008 (UTC)