Shakespeare and Berrigan

I liked reading Shakespeare’s and Berrigan’s poems. While they were both written as sonnets, and about fairly similar subjects, they were very different. It seemed to show the evolution of the sonnet. It was originally very formal, but then poets started to play with its form to push it to its limits. I also saw in the sonnets a reflection of the time that they were written in. Shakespeare’s were very formal and used the kind of language that was expected of poetry at that time. Shakespeare also really stuck to the rhyme scheme. Berrigan used less formal language, and did not really stick to a formal rhyme scheme. Shakespeare’s poems were very formal and flowed, while Berrigan’s were informal and almost choppy. Berrigan’s sonnets had a very surrealist feel to me. They jumped all over the place within a poem, but there were connections between the separate poems. Berrigan repeated words or entire lines from one poem to another. The introduction to “The Sonnets” mentioned that Berrigan had a ‘method’ to writing his poems. This made his poems seem very mechanical, like the age he was living in. Shakespeare’s poems were very flowery and ornate like the age he lived in. While reading Berrigan’s poems I did find them a bit difficult to understand. The words gave off a lot of emotion, but I could not really figure out exactly what he was talking about. This made me think about if art actually has to have a solid meaning. Can an emotional piece of art be accepted as widely by the public as one with a clear meaning?