the complexity of the word "flatter" not only within Sonnet 87 but within other Shakespeare sonnets as well. While the word has been used "in contexts of purely negative self-deception" as well as "in the context of providing genuine beauty," it is utilized within this poem as an "evocation of joy that is brief and delusive, but potent while it lasts". The phrase "as a dream doth flatter" correlates strongly with the Petrarchan view that earthly joys are briefly. Sexuality Opening with the exclamation of "Farewell!" sonnet 87 reads very much like a break-up poem, which would suggest a romantic theme to it, and because of the sonnet's addressee, the suggestion turns into a homosexual romance. At the very least, Shakespeare thinks that he owes it to the youth to break up with him, due to what Pequigney calls "the narcissistic wound". Shakespeare's undermining of himself is proof of an apparent "wound to the ego". Sonnet 87 is filled with over the top, romantic language towards the young man, with lines such as "Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter". Yet when watered down, Pequigney argues that this simply states that Shakespeare is only acknowledging that he enjoyed knowing the young man. The use of romantic language masks the idea that this is purely a platonic love between the two males. In the sonnets addressed towards the young man, such as sonnet 87, there is a lack of explicit sexual imagery which is prominent in the sonnets addressed towards the dark lady. This, as Pequigney claims, is further proof "that nothing sexually amiss is to be found in the lyrics of that Shakespeare composed for the youth." A. L. Rowse, another Shakespearean critic, also rejects the existence of homoerotic suggestion in sonnet 87, arguing that the language of the time is simply so far from how we communicate today. The language between two friends "might be considered sexually implicit" in today's world, but hundreds of years earlier was simply friendly. References Further reading British poems Sonnets by William Shakespeare