With my dissertation well under way, I hope to use this blog to think through some of my ideas and share the direction of my writing. The overarching aim of my dissertation, titled Large and Spacious Will: Sex and Sexuality in Shakespeare's Sonnets , is to attempt to reclaim the 'dark lady' from a figure which functions merely as an example of misogynist discourse to a woman who is a rebel and a threat to patriarchy and social order. To achieve this aim, I am taking an intersection approach. The oppression of race, class, gender, sexuality and many other spheres of oppression are always interlinked and inseparable and so, in my analysis of the sonnets, I feel it is important to consider the role of race, class, gender and sexuality. In this blog I want to outline some of the ways in which the woman of sonnets 127-154, sometimes known as the 'dark lady', disrupts class structures. The first 18 of Shakespeare's sonnets urge a fair young man to procreate in ord...