We've all read Shakespeare's Sonnet #18. As a poet and student of literature, I've read it quite a few times. I started to wonder, one afternoon, what this poem would be like if Shakespeare could text.
Below is my twenty-first century adaptation of the poem entitled, Sonnet 2 Summer. I hope you enjoy it.
Shakespeare tends to get placed on a pedestal, especially by people who study English, myself included. Many of us will suggest that his work endures is because of his mastery of the English language. While I am not disputing that, I think that the true timelessness of Shakespeare's work comes from the universality of his material.
Love, in the last couple of centuries, has not changed a whole lot. It's still idealized and pursued for many of the same reasons. Humans, by nature, desire companionship, emotional intimacy, and, if we're being totally honest, a sexual partner or two. This has not changed over time, but our means of expressing it has. The above sonnet(yes, it is a full sonnet) may not sound the same as the original, but the heart is more or less the same.
