I feel like an uneducated hick for liking the sonnets.

Why? They're chock-full of awesome language, burning passion, and they're travel-sized (as compared to The Rape Of Lucrece) - what's not to like?

I feel like an uneducated hick for not having read the sonnets. And reading maybe five of the plays, all told. I'm not counting the ones I used Cliffs Notes for.

what's not to like?

....but.... didn't Jen say they were about ugly ladies of the night with a bad case of clap? Or lame-ass unrequited love?

It's just...there are some sonnets that I think are utterly lovely, and I had thought they were about (requited) love, but now I feel like a dunce.

It's just...there are some sonnets that I think are utterly lovely,

Then enjoy them. There's a lot of bitter, but there's some perfectly lovely moments, too. My favorite is:

Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,
And each doth good turns now unto the other:
When that mine eye is famish'd for a look,
Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother,
With my love's picture then my eye doth feast,
And to the painted banquet bids my heart;
Another time mine eye is my heart's guest,
And in his thoughts of love doth share a part:
So, either by thy picture or my love,
Thy self away, art present still with me;
For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,
And I am still with them, and they with thee;
Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight
Awakes my heart, to heart's and eye's delight.

You can make the argument that he's pining, but it's a perfectly wonderful example of the melancholy of separation. I think.

My favorite is 114, I think. "Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed..."

I need pie, or a meatball sub. Or, BOTH!

I feel like an uneducated hick for liking the sonnets.

Oh, God, then I'm the biggest loser ever, because I have the frontispiece from the 1609 quarto tattooed on my arm.

I love the Sonnets more than any other book ever written. I think it's the best book of poetry ever written, the alpha and omega. It's just that they're so complex and bitter and gorgeous and wonderful and the story they tell is such a quintessence of heartbreak and the frailties of the human heart that it pains me to see "Let me not to the marriage of true minds..." used in a wedding ceremony, because that poem is not at all about everlasting love.

The thing with the Sonnets is that they can't be extricated from each other; the sequence tells a story, and each one depends on the others for its full meaning.

Helen Vendler's The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets is the only book I've ever read that comes close to exploring the whole sequence fully, with analyses of diction and meter (like, complete with graphs and stuff). It's incredible, and well worth the dense read.

My favorite is "When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes". I don't care who/why/what it was written for, that's a glorious piece of poetry.

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

The thing with the Sonnets is that they can't be extricated from each other; the sequence tells a story, and each one depends on the others for its full meaning.

I didn't (and wouldn't have) used any of the sonnets in my own wedding, but I'm not so big on authorial intent/meaning with poetry. My experience with it is the opposite of absolute. I generally enjoy learning authorial intent, or reading different theories on it, but I don't let it affect where the poem hits me, e.g. Frost's The Road Not Taken.

Oh, I absolutely think the emotional effect of a poem is just as important / valid / meaningful / totally personal as the "critical" version, and in a way I almost wish I hadn't done so much studying of them from the lit crit standpoint, because now I can't read them as untempered love poems anymore.

But the emotional truth of it is as unique as the reader, and the beauty of poetry is that it's like particle theory in physics; the act of observing the poem changes it, and changes it with each individual observation. My "truth" of the sonnets, which I have been big-mouthed and opinionated about here, is just that -- only mine. Everyone else should love the sonnets on their own terms, from "Y'know, I love that 'marriage of true minds' sonnet, and I don't care what anyone else thinks of it; to me it speaks of true love, and I'm going to use it in my wedding, so screw you, Cervix Lady!" to "I hate poetry, please let's talk about something else."

it pains me to see "Let me not to the marriage of true minds..." used in a wedding ceremony, because that poem is not at all about everlasting love.

Er....really?

Man, I hate feeling ignorant. Particularly about something that I love. Because it's like -- I don't really love what I thought I loved, you know?