Sonnet notes 27

I started this blog almost a year ago. At first, I talked about the importance of meter in Shakespeare, especially in his Sonnets. Then I blogged some excerpts from my latest edition of The Sonnets, “Shakespeare’s Sonnets Among His Private Friends.” What’s been most fun for me, though, has been the 26 “Sonnet notes” that have followed. These comprise new observations that I have not previously written about in either of my editions of The Sonnets. They arose out of my preparations for (and observations during and after) my course on The Sonnets for the Osher Online Learning Institute. It has been so interesting to see how much more The Sonnets had to offer me, even after decades of study. One of my favorite books growing up was “The Story Behind the Painting” (text by Leo Rosten). It’s a lovely book about art, featuring a single painting by each of some of the world’s greatest artists with an interesting and often charming story about them. I still thumb through the book every now and then. One of my favorites is the story about Hokusai and his color print of a waterfall. It quotes Hokusai as saying: “I will really master the secrets of art at 90. When I reach 100, my work will be truly sublime. My final goal will be attained around the age of 110, when every line and dot will be life itself.” Rosten notes about Hokusai: “In his last years, he signed himself Gakyo-rojin.’ It means ‘The Art-Crazy Old Man.’” 

At the age of 69, I can comfortably say I have many years left before I master the secrets of The Sonnets.

--Carl Atkins, The Sonnet-Crazy Old Man