Shakespeare sonnet sequences4/5/2023 “Rethinking Shakespeare’s Dark Lady.” In A Companion to Shakespeare’s Sonnets, edited by Michael Schoenfeldt, 293–313. This essay shows how these sonnets might be the springboard for advanced ELT students to explore and debate how stereotypes related to physical appearance may impact on the forming of identity and damage individual well-being, and how they form the basis of discrimination against those who do not fit the models prescribed by social media. In the twenty-first century, the spread of unrealistic digital images, beautified by the editing software of the photo-based media, affects people’s self-esteem and revives the paradox of beauty. Sonnets 127, 130, 131, and 132 seem to highlight this paradox by breaking the artificial mask which covers the person’s face to reveal the diversity and uniqueness of each human being. Departing from these rules meant being stigmatized, while women who beautified their face with thick layers of cosmetics to follow fashion were targeted for deceiving onlookers. In the Renaissance, strict rules and cultural norms concerning appearance circumscribed human identity, and aesthetic stereotypes were like theatrical masks which obscured the individual beneath. Sonnets 127, 130, 131, and 132 appear to mirror and challenge the early modern discourse on the representation of the self and the formation of identity. Shakespeare’s works encapsulate universal questions that are still meaningful in the twenty-first century.
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