This is fantastic! I personally feel that we have done The Bard an outrageous disservice in interpreting his sonnets in a similar way to those of his peers, and sadly that's informed our consensus view of him as a person. While the language in the sonnets *is* sexual in nature, the framing story is Golding's translation of Ovid's tale of Narcissus and Echo and that love is self-directed - I feel confident in suggesting that whatever his relationship with Anne Hathaway was before the death of their only son, his passing traumatized them both and forever altered the course and quality of English literature.
This is fantastic! I personally feel that we have done The Bard an outrageous disservice in interpreting his sonnets in a similar way to those of his peers, and sadly that's informed our consensus view of him as a person. While the language in the sonnets *is* sexual in nature, the framing story is Golding's translation of Ovid's tale of Narcissus and Echo and that love is self-directed - I feel confident in suggesting that whatever his relationship with Anne Hathaway was before the death of their only son, his passing traumatized them both and forever altered the course and quality of English literature.
If you find this theory interesting I welcome you to pay https://industrialcuriosity.com/shakespeares_sonnets_exposed a visit!
Sounds like ye olde barde was having quite the time.