Shakespeare's Sonnets: Crash Course Literature 304 

Shakespeare was a low-key gamer. His sonnets end in GG.

That awkward moment when you promise to immortalize your boyfriend and then forget to introduce him

"He barely knew Laura, but when did that stop men from romanticizing women?" Paper Towns anyone?

Where I'm from, summer days are neither lovely nor temperate. It's obvious that Shakespeare did not live in Texas.

Sonnets 1-17 be like Young man! You gotta settle down I said young man! Stop your sleeping around!

I am a 10th grade student in India and I am astonished at the straightwashing of Shakespeare done in our English textbook. While our teacher was explaining Sonnet 55 'Not Marble,Nor the Gilded Monuments', in the first stanza, she explained that Shakespeare wrote this poem to his beloved mistress. In the later stanzas,she changed the pronoun to 'he' and explained it was addressed to his friend. However , if you read the poem it is extremely clear that the person to whom the poem is addressed to is a man and possibly romantically involved with Shakespeare. When I confronted my teacher about the fluctuations of the pronouns, she aggressively scolded me and told me not to "think of such things". As a young girl questioning her sexuality, it troubles me to see such ignorance in people.

Thanks for easing my ShakesFear

I used to write Shakespearean Sonnets for my girlfriend but... "Ne'er again shall I write her a sonnet She has gone from me like night fleeing dawn Her adorn'd in summer dress and bonnet Memories only of what's past and gone."

Man, I'm glad John's doing a Crash Course again.

I'm always having to memorize sonnets for my theatre classes and I absolutely love reciting them. Shakespearean sonnets have such a beautiful rhythm

Any Doctor Who fan can tell you that Shakespeare went both ways

Ooof. That is a tortured analysis of 116, at least the "love is not love" part, which clearly does not end there (as suggested in the video) but instead reads, "love is not love which bends with the remover to remove." In other words it is not love if it changes when the object leaves. You can't make sense of a poetic statement based solely on where the line visually ends, or even mostly. You have to take the complete thought. But hooray for reading them and talking about them!

Fun fact: The lyrics to Space Jam? In iambic pentameter. You could sing entire Shakespearean sonnets to the tune of Space Jam. Your welcome

Sonnets to Bromeo

I despised all of my literature classes. It took me so long to comprehend the material; sometimes reading a paragraph 3 times just to get it in my noodle. However, your videos are extremely insightful, interesting, and concise. If only actual literature classes had lectures like this. Thank you for providing youtube with excellent, and intelligent, media.

0:53 So you think he ended the rhyme scheme with a GG to complement himself on a job well done?

We are learning Sonnet 116 for this semester and this helped me a lot. I really hope that you'll discuss more poets and their poems ahead!

The Dark Lady was Martha Jones obviously.

Is no one going to comment on his laptop that says “THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS”?

And in the end this transforms into Dear Hank and John: a comedy podcast about death. XD

Sonnet 130 is my personal favorite. I have always had trouble with my body image, and it's comforting sometimes to know that even if I can never be pretty, someone might think me as fine as anyone else.

Mr. Green, Thank you for the time you take to make both informative and fun videos. These have been immeasurably helpful to my 8th grade students when trying to understand complex literary themes and ideas. So on behalf of all the teachers out there "borrowing" your information, I thank you.

Thank you so much John and the whole crash course team :) I started studying English at College this year and my Literary Studies course is really hard, because we sadly never discussed Literature in school :( But now I basically understand everything! Thank you sooooo much!

Thank you for doing Crash Course Literature John! Your presence was greatly missed. Congrats on your success.

I went to a performing arts school for one year during high school. Each of the thirty-ish people in my class had to break down each line word by word of one of Shakespear's sonnets. We had to show the rhyme scheme, our interpretation, rewrite the sonnet in our own words, then perform the memorised sonnet to the whole class. It was fun for most of us.

I have to admit, I never read any Shakespear. Of course, I'm familiar with some of it because... Shakespear. But I never knew that he wrote sonnets addressed to a man. Not that this is unheard of. A lot of French authors (I speak French originally) were at least bisexual and you can find that in their writing. But there's something particular about the fact that Shakespear romanticized a man. A lot of time, it feels like romance only exists for straight people. There's only ever straight couples in Romance movies, and the stories of those who aren't straight are always tragic, or at least they are always about overcoming some great difficulties in acceptance. There's something soothing about knowing such classic romantic words were written by a man, for a man. What I'm trying to say, I think, is thank you.

Possible plot twist of Doctor Who: The young man in the sonnet is the Doctor himself. Wouldn't that be hillarious

it's lit

Love that ending.

that ending got pretty dark real quick xD

He should have talked about sonnet 20. "A woman's face with natures own hand painted" the one that shows Shakespeare had a boner for a dude. So beautiful and tragic. By far my favourite.

i couldn't help but think of the guy as the 10th doctor and the dark lady as Martha Jones lol

I have always thought that some of the energy in Shakespeare's sonnets is sublimated grief from the tragic death of his young son. If you read the sonnets to the young man with this in mind they take on a new dimension, particularly the allusions to death and decay juxtaposed with the eternity of love. I'm not suggesting they are about his son per se, but that he sublimated that grief to inform the depth of emotion and the imagery they contain.

Catherine Tate reciting Sonnet 131 during a Red Nose Day sketch with David Tennant is amazing. Her delivery is perfect. Amist I Bovvered? Looketh at my face...

My favourite author helping me with my literary class, thank u John!

Shall i compare thee to a summers day is hands down one of Shakespeare's deepest lines. Especially how it fits into the sonnet itself.

Thanks John. I particularly loved your summation at the end.

YUSSS. I'm so glad they didn't skim over the fact that Shakespeare is writing about a man. And I'm also so glad John Green happens to agree with me that sonnet 30 is extremely romantic because it is not romantic. :)

Yay! 116 is my favorite of his sonnets; I'm so glad it was mentioned in this episode

"Yong man, there's no need to feel down. I said young man, pick yourself off the ground." :^) yay shakespeare

I remember learning about Iambic Pentameter on my first day of high school freshman honors Engish. We used the Oscar-Meyer Wiener song to put sonnets to and it never failed.

Thanks to your lecture and insight, I should've known you 36 years ago - the year I started my English language and literature course.

We all die. *Laughs in Isaac Arthur's strangely strong and stirring voice

"Well, actually I can't guarantee that I'll actually see you next week..." Classic awesome hilarious John & Crash Course. Perfect way to end a great episode. :)

sonnet 130 reminds me of the poem "la reina" by pablo neruda. this idea that love isn't about admiring someone because they're perfect but rather you love someone despite their imperfections because they are human

Trying to learn a monoglue, Henry 4 Part 1, Henry Percy (Hotspur) My Liege speech for auditioning. I can say its a damn tricky speech to learn and say at a fast pace. Makes me proud to be British knowing Shakespeare changed the World we know today!! Great programme to watch.

thank you so much Mr. john green ... i am gonna take my exam tomorrow.. you have just done it for me.. thank you sir....

I love writing "Shakespearean" sonnets. It's like a word game: a combination drabble and crossword puzzle... Plus, you get a chance to make a point about something important to you.

It really wouldn't be a video with John if it didn't end with something existential panic-inducing. lol Side note, My Mistress' Eyes is one of my favorite poems for exactly the reasons mentioned.

I started watching this series to pass my CSET, but now I just like watching it.

YES!!!!!! Another literature video 🤗 All my life I have waited...

I've been waiting for this video for so long

I liked your random insertion of someone's last words. A+ for nerdiness.

Thanks for this video it has really motivated me to read more of shakespear's sonnets.😄👏

I only see these courses because of how enthusiastically you present it!!! I only see these courses because of YOU John Green 😊😊😊☺️☺️☺️😃keep it up!!

I really like how you say things like "we don't know if she was black or just had black hair" instead of saying "this is our interpretation." I also really like Crash Course. Thanks.

Love these so much.

This is truly excellent John! The best lessons I've seen on RU-vid regarding any subject. Now do some Hemingway please!

"He's showing how easily change and fickleness can happen. Like, look how easily..." [sudden stop; checks phone] "A server error has occurred." Touché.

the prominent lecture of my life

I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU UPLOADED THIS BEFORE MY SUMMER SCHOOL EXAM!!!!

Will you ever do a UK history, like you did for US history? I mean there is plenty to talk about...

LOVED it.

who else is here because of their teacher

He looks so happy to be back in Crash Course!

This was great - thank you and I wish this series could go on until you have to start covering Dean Koontz because you've covered everything else.

every time I see that cute lil john green face in a crash course video I cry with joy

10:07 "Love transcends time"... where have I heard that before? Oh yeah - Muuuurph!

That ending was incredibly hilarious. XD

oh god, I just love how passionate John is about poetry, as passionate as Shakespeare himself but... a far more realistic

According to Poetic Designs by Stephen Adams, the reason Iambic Pentameter works so well for the English language is because English is timed according to its stresses. The average English speaker, speaking comfortably, will try to keep the spacing between stresses constant, so we'll tend to speed up or slow down at certain points in order to keep that timing. Iambic meter simply codifies this speech pattern as a ruleset, so when you read well-written Iambic poetry aloud, it feels perfectly natural, neither rushed nor slowed, unless the poet wants to deliberately disrupt your timing with well-placed Trochees and metrical inversions. All of that is opposed to syllabic-timed languages, which gives the same timing to each syllable, regardless if it's stressed or unstressed. Romantic languages, like French, Italian and Spanish are syllabic-timed, which is why they often sound very hurried and musical to English speakers--we aren't used to hearing every individual syllable getting the same amount of time. It's also one of many reasons why Haikus read so awkwardly in English. Japanese is also a syllabic-timed language, so its syllable-based structure not only dictates the syntax of the poem, but also its pacing and rhythm.

thanks for educating me, i love it.

Seventh grade teacher told you what a sonnet was? You went to a much better school than I, sir. But thank you for this informative and educational video!

Full of knowledge!

I was talking with a friend today about Sonnets, more spesifically William Shakespear's and Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese, which happen to be my personal favorites. I think she is going to love this video.

I love the idea of mortality being circumvented by our enduring, haunting creations and selves

Gotta love how even Shakespearean sonnets end with "GG".

You and Hank are my favorite I love you guys

Can you guys do a (couple) episodes on Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card? There's plenty to talk about just in that book, not to mention in the whole series.

Very useful. Thankx .

Nice explanation🙏

I had to memorize sonnet 116 for my English class and before I clicked on it I said I wonder if he'll talk about it 😄

You are awesome, thank you!

Im literally watching this because my dad is making me do work and this actually makes stuff fun

So helpful!!!!

Thanks a lot for this incredible video ! You blushed at the end, you're definitely in love ! 😄

My favorite is "When in disgrace in fortune and men's eyes . . . "

ive been reading poetry (mostly Shakespearean) to my 2 month old brother and sister. mostly because they just like to hear voices and I got sick of narrating the day to day business of our household but they also really seem to like the rythm of it (its often the only way they will sleep).

Thanks for giving me an existential crisis at 12:58 am. Great video btw

Ah that was a nice beginning John, made me feel good. :)

I love that he made clear that humanizing your partner is a lot more romantic than romanticizing them. People look weird and have bad breath and I don't think it's romantic to hide all these "flaws" that aren't flaws in order to make your partner seem perfect.

we're all gonna die, thank you for watching

Glad that ended on an inspirational and not at all depressing note.

I'm so happy he did sonnet 130

I have already watched this 3 times in the past few hours. help

Thank You so much

6:19 This quote is true, yet beautiful. I wonder if Shakespears was inspired by Italian Sonnet and wrote variation of this form. "Love is not love". At first, I thought love is toxic, because it involve a individual living with another one and can't live if he get divorce or died at young age. Then, he become depress and find himself/herself weak. Love is supposed to exchange their feeling and accept their choice, like leaving or divorcing. Resisting to loneliness and be strong alone, even if this hurt. Unfornatly, Love is like a puzzle piece, they were so attached that they shatter brutally, like a broken heart. I believe that love is a weapon, not a need. I hope to read his sonnets in French. Speaking of which, do you teach Charles Baudelaire's poetries? I heard that his poem were translated into English that you can read them and study them. Charles was involved in Edgar Alan Poe's work as he translated them into French. Could be why he choose the word ''Spleen'' to define the existantiel anxiousness?

Thank you soooo much!God bless ya!

Yes Shakespeare!

This is so lit right now...