Research Article

Where Meaning Slips: Transgressive Acts and Fluidity in Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Number: 65 June 29, 2026
TR EN

Where Meaning Slips: Transgressive Acts and Fluidity in Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Abstract

This study examines the widespread recognition and popularity of Shakespeare’s Sonnets across centuries and among diverse readers. To shed light on their appreciation and enduring reputation, rather than hermeneutic analyses, deconstructive reading will focus on how these seemingly traditional courtly love poems have managed to convey universal issues and concerns across generations. In depicting love, desire, and the destructive power of time, these sonnets do not offer a fixed set of meanings but perform transgressive acts by unsettling and dislocating traditionally acknowledged binary oppositions that depend on hierarchy. The conventional patriarchal erotic zone is problematized when gender binaries are unsettled. Likewise, time, as an antagonist, is reframed when it is reinscribed in a binary opposition between the persona’s poetic skills and the procreative potential of his beloved. Derridean conceptual tools such as différance and deconstruction will be used to examine how these sonnets resist fixed interpretations by constructing metaphors, paradoxes, and ambiguities. The quest for meaning in these poems is challenged each time a conventional polarity is subverted and reconstructed, as the reader participates in the production of meaning. This paper thus aims to analyze how these sonnets create a rich textual space where meaning is perpetually postponed, built and rebuilt in each reading experience.

Keywords

References

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  6. Davis, R. C., & Schleifer, R. (1986). Contemporary literary criticism: Literary and cultural studies. Longman.
  7. Derrida, J. (1997). Of grammatology (G. C. Spivak, Trans.). Johns Hopkins University Press. (Original work published 1967)
  8. Derrida, J. (1988). Structure, sign, and play in the discourse of the human sciences. In K. M. Newton (Ed.), Twentieth-century literary theory: A reader (pp. 149–154). Macmillan.

Details

Primary Language

English

Subjects

British and Irish Language, Literature and Culture

Journal Section

Research Article

Publication Date

June 29, 2026

Submission Date

January 15, 2026

Acceptance Date

March 25, 2026

Published in Issue

Year 2026 Number: 65

APA
Doğan, B. (2026). Where Meaning Slips: Transgressive Acts and Fluidity in Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi İnsan Ve Toplum Bilimleri Dergisi, 65, 85-98. https://doi.org/10.35237/suitder.1863875
AMA
1.Doğan B. Where Meaning Slips: Transgressive Acts and Fluidity in Shakespeare’s Sonnets. SUITDER. 2026;(65):85-98. doi:10.35237/suitder.1863875
Chicago
Doğan, Buket. 2026. “Where Meaning Slips: Transgressive Acts and Fluidity in Shakespeare’s Sonnets”. Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi İnsan Ve Toplum Bilimleri Dergisi, nos. 65: 85-98. https://doi.org/10.35237/suitder.1863875.
EndNote
Doğan B (June 1, 2026) Where Meaning Slips: Transgressive Acts and Fluidity in Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi İnsan ve Toplum Bilimleri Dergisi 65 85–98.
IEEE
[1]B. Doğan, “Where Meaning Slips: Transgressive Acts and Fluidity in Shakespeare’s Sonnets”, SUITDER, no. 65, pp. 85–98, June 2026, doi: 10.35237/suitder.1863875.
ISNAD
Doğan, Buket. “Where Meaning Slips: Transgressive Acts and Fluidity in Shakespeare’s Sonnets”. Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi İnsan ve Toplum Bilimleri Dergisi. 65 (June 1, 2026): 85-98. https://doi.org/10.35237/suitder.1863875.
JAMA
1.Doğan B. Where Meaning Slips: Transgressive Acts and Fluidity in Shakespeare’s Sonnets. SUITDER. 2026;:85–98.
MLA
Doğan, Buket. “Where Meaning Slips: Transgressive Acts and Fluidity in Shakespeare’s Sonnets”. Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi İnsan Ve Toplum Bilimleri Dergisi, no. 65, June 2026, pp. 85-98, doi:10.35237/suitder.1863875.
Vancouver
1.Buket Doğan. Where Meaning Slips: Transgressive Acts and Fluidity in Shakespeare’s Sonnets. SUITDER. 2026 Jun. 1;(65):85-98. doi:10.35237/suitder.1863875