...in Sonnet #76 at first seems to express frustration at his lack of originality. However, he soon makes it clear that he realizes that most of what we write or wish to write has already been written in some version, at least. And, more importantly, that this does not mean we should not write it as our unique expressions will keep it alive and new. We can always bring something original to the already established canon, literary conversations, observations of life, interpretation/analysis of history, etc. I (arrogantly?) don't often apply this to myself. But it has also been echoed to me by many when I begin to whine about how I can't write something because it's already "overdone", "trillado", "hackneyed", "condensed onto a bumpersticker" etc. (Hmmm...interesting how those descriptions lend themselves to almost every topic I want to treat.) I summarize/paraphrase my wise mentors in this way, "If you can't write something absolutely original, write it anyway, but in your own words."
But let us now look to the poet's words, rather than mine.
Sonnet o' the day
Sonnet #76 - 2007-10-08 03:05:47-04 (received today, 10/10/07)
LXXVI.
Why is my verse so barren of new pride,
So far from variation or quick change?
Why with the time do I not glance aside
To new-found methods and to compounds strange?
Why write I still all one, ever the same,
And keep invention in a noted weed,
That every word doth almost tell my name,
Showing their birth and where they did proceed?
O, know, sweet love, I always write of you,
And you and love are still my argument;
So all my best is dressing old words new,
Spending again what is already spent:
For as the sun is daily new and old,
So is my love still telling what is told.
(énfasis mío)
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Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (29 September, 1547 - 23 April, 1616)
William Shakespeare (23 April, 1564 - 23 April, 1616)
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