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Unread 04-07-2024, 09:27 PM
Glenn Wright Glenn Wright is offline
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Some nice wordplay in the first sonnet, Tony.
S1L8: undermind—This is a great term for the digital subconscious, with overtones of “underworld” and “dark web.” It also suggests the speaker’s attempt to “undermine” the will of the digital gods and pursue the ghost of Shakespeare in a katabasis to the underworld paralleling Aeneas’s encounter with the ghost of Hector in a dream in The Aeneid.
S1L10: appalls—Blake uses the same word in his poem, “London” with the same double meaning of “shocked” and “lightened.” This plays nicely into the light/dark images in the next two lines.
The play of the letters O and I (eye) against the binary code digits is reinforced by the oxymorons “being unbeing” and “seeing unseeing.” Very clever.
The addition of the first sonnet makes the second sonnet the actual epic katabasis. Will a third sonnet bring him back to the upper world?
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