Research Article

A Lacanian Scrutiny of Shakespeare’s Sonnets in the Light of Mortality or Eternity

Number: 30 October 21, 2022
  • Ali Mohammadi *
TR EN

A Lacanian Scrutiny of Shakespeare’s Sonnets in the Light of Mortality or Eternity

Abstract

Shakespearean sonnets are conceived to be the most renowned sonnets of the Renaissance era. In these poems, Shakespeare not only changes the appearance of the sonnet with a different combination of its Italian counterpart, but also looks at the identity of love with a distinct perspective from his contemporaries. Indeed, Shakespeare sees the identity of love as tied to concepts such as time, beauty, death and imperishability. Here, time is linear and the lover, using new metaphors, constantly tries to immortalize beauty and his love. In this way, on the surface, it seems that Shakespeare repeats the same Platonic attitude in the relationship between the lover and the beloved. But in the psychoanalytic analysis of Jacques Lacan, it can be seen that the lover is caught in the double chain of death and eternity. In other words, the lover's effort for the beloved's everlastingness is suspended and perpetuity becomes a time in the future that is constantly postponed in the lines of the poem. After examining the identity of love and its relationship with time, this article aims to answer the question that whether Shakespearean sonnets pay attention to the timelessness of love or at nothingness and death.

Keywords

References

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  2. De Grazia, M. (1999). “The Scandal of Shakespearean Sonnets” in Shakespearean Sonnets: Critical Essays. James Schiffer, ed. New York: Garland Publishing Inc.
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  4. Duncan‐Jones, K. (1998). ed. Shakespearean Sonnets. The Arden Shakespeare, 3rd series. Italy: Thomson Publishing Company.
  5. Herman, P, C. (1999). “What’s the Use? Or The Problematic of Economy in Shakespearean Procreation Sonnets” in Shakespearean Sonnets: Critical Essays. James Schiffer, ed. New York: Garland Publishing Inc.
  6. Lacan, J. (1979). The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, Jacques‐Allen Miller, ed., Alan Sheridan, trans. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd.
  7. Lacan, J. (1988). The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: Book II. The Ego in Freud’s Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis, 1954‐1955, Jacques‐Alain Miller, ed., Sylvia Tomaselli, trans. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Details

Primary Language

English

Subjects

Linguistics

Journal Section

Research Article

Authors

Ali Mohammadi * This is me
0000-0001-5240-1832
Türkiye

Publication Date

October 21, 2022

Submission Date

August 8, 2022

Acceptance Date

-

Published in Issue

Year 2022 Number: 30

APA
Mohammadi, A. (2022). A Lacanian Scrutiny of Shakespeare’s Sonnets in the Light of Mortality or Eternity. RumeliDE Dil Ve Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi, 30, 1106-1115. https://doi.org/10.29000/rumelide.1190370