A Revelation About The Sonnets

Shakespeare's, that is. I'm no Shakespeare scholar -- in fact, a friend or two will attest, I'm a Shakespeare idiot in most respects -- but I did read his sonnets for a class (back when) and enjoyed some of them. Forgive the following if it is common knowledge.

So I was browsing the sonnets today (baser evils boredom's bred), and it dawned on me -- one of them eureka things -- that their main promise goes unfulfilled. The poet's Great Ink standing against Time's Decay, preserving a shade of (the boy's and/or dark lady's) beauty; a form of immortality that Damned Scythe can't take. That's the promise. But heck, I read and read looking for some penetrating descriptions of the boy's beauty (and whatever other of his components one might wish to preserve) and came up short. Just an occasional vague reference to his lips or legs, the usual horndog-cum-romantic metaphors.

So Shakespeare spends all this time pontificating on the nature of perseverance and preservation, without actually doing any. I want to know about the kid. Did he like to swim? Cute laugh? What were his thoughts on Aristotle? If his soul is too much to ask the Ink to hold, then for chrissakes at least describe his personality.

It's a good warning for me, since I go meta pretty often and forget the primary task. Pretty sure I've rung this bell before, but I'm trying to get better at balancing the act of speaking *to* the fabled reader (which overlaps with going meta, in my understanding) and speaking *about* my concerns.