Sonnet VIII by William Shakespeare in Songs of Kabalevsky, Stravinsky and Mykietyn
Sonnet VIII by William Shakespeare in Songs of Kabalevsky, Stravinsky and Mykietyn

Summary/Abstract: Sonnet VIII Music to hear by William Shakespeare belongs to so-called “procreation sonnets”, where the poet insists on a young man to marry and have children. It should grant immortality to him and his youthful beauty to the world. The poem, written in iambic pentameter, reveals the structure of an Elizabethan sonnet. The main emphasis is laid on the last stanza which does not serve anymore as a protective advice, but as a warning. The syndrome of Sonnet VIII, understood after Mieczysław Tomaszewski as a “group of constitutive features” is formed here by the following categories: musicality, metaphorism, oxymoronity, rhetoric and erotic ambivalence. The poem has found its musical interpretations in the output of the 20th century composers: Dmitry Kabalevsky, Igor Stravinsky and Paweł Mykietyn. All songs are both musically and expressively distant from each other, nevertheless each of them reflects an element of the Sonnet’s character. Metaphorism and oxymoronity appear in music of every composer in a very individualized way, which is proved by the analysis of relations between text and music. The sphere of erotic ambivalence is present only in Mykietyn’s song, intended for a male soprano. In a lyrical song by Kabalevsky the musicality and rhetoric of the poem are especially underlined. In a constructivist approach of Stravinsky (dodecaphony) and Mykietyn

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