Talk:Sonnet 127

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Help! Most Shakespeare sonnets have little/no understandable intros and many articles are missing! 24.60.178.218 13:11, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Eyes vs. Brows
Lines 9-10 read: "Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black, / Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem." I've read it as "my mistress' brows are raven black." This allows us to avoid the ambiguity. The source linked below seems to acknowledge both and I think it switched out "brows" for "eyes," or maybe the other way around, but it's not clear why from context. This source also discusses the two different versions, and implies that "eyes" was the original: http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/127. The photo shared here ends at line 8. Brows is not repetitive, so I would hope that's what Shakespeare intended for the sonnet to say, but it's hard to tell. Any further insights? Daniel J. Hakimi (talk) 00:24, 22 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Booth (2000: 110-11, 436-37) and Duncan-Jones (2010: 368-69) are 2 of the best modern editions, and frankly the ones I had to hand. They both acknowledge some editors' insertion of "brows" or "hairs" in one or the other of these lines but retain the original "eyes" in both. Of my 2 complete works, Riverside (1997: 1866) retains "eyes" and Pelican (1969: 1474) replaces the instance in line 9 with "brows". Booth holds that "no argument for emendation or for any particular emendation is sufficiently persuasive to overcome counterarguments", and recommends Ingram and Redpath's summary of the problems. At first blush, I'm skeptical of emendation, but the topic itself is certainly appropriate for the article. I encourage you to research the problem and contribute a summary. Phil wink (talk) 02:39, 22 March 2017 (UTC)


 * I honestly can't say I know this much about the historical study of Shakespeare's original writings... or what "emendation" is. While I'm somewhat curious, I really don't have time to dig that deep. So if anybody wants to pick this up... please do! Daniel J. Hakimi (talk) 18:03, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
 * wikt:emendation. There are any number of these little critical controversies all over the works, including, obviously, the sonnets, that can beneficially be covered more or less simply by summing them up as you have done here. It doesn't really have to be much more elaborate than that. --Xover (talk) 06:31, 14 April 2018 (UTC)