Events
The Mysteries of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18
3 May 2020
3pm – 4pm
Zoom Webinar
Prof. Julian Lamb, Dept. of English
Julian Lamb received his PhD from Cambridge University. He has published a monograph on early modern pedagogy and articles on Shakespeare, early modern linguistics, and English Renaissance poetry.
Tel: (852) 3943 7107
Email: arts@cuhk.edu.hk
Free and open to the public, this series of webinars will present research by a diverse group of scholars from the Faculty of Arts at CUHK. Each speaker will bring refreshing and historical perspectives on our contemporary moment, either directly or through reflection. Together, these public events will speak for the value and relevance of humanities scholarship at a time when we face profound global challenges. Lectures will be about 30 minutes in length, followed by a question and answer session with the audience.
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 (“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day”) is one of the most famous poems in English literature. But do we really understand it? It appears to promise the beloved eternal life, but can a poem really keep someone alive eternally? And how much do we know about the person it is addressed to: were they real, or fictional? And did Shakespeare want his sonnets published, or were they the expressions of a private, and perhaps shameful love? These are some of the questions this talk will raise. And though definitive answers to them are not always available, sometimes the mystery is more interesting.
Moderator: Prof. Li Ou, Dept. of English
