Who are the Addressees of Shakespeare's Sonnets (in Slovenian)?

Shakespeares' Sonnets (1609) were traditionally understood as falling into two groups: sonnets 1-126 were said to celebrate a handsome young man and sonnets 127-154 were thought to address a dark lady. It was also generally believed that the sonnets develop a fairly coherent narrative of the speaker's relationship with the two individuals. The textual truth, however, is that it is impossible to determine how many addressees the Sonnets have or what gen-der they are. The article argues that out of the 139 sonnets with one addressee, 115 are ungendered in the source text (83%), while 14 are about a man and 10 are about a woman. Six sonnets have (at least) two addressees and the rest are about abstract concepts. Two integral Slovenian translations have been published so far-by Janez Menart in 1965 and by Srecko Fiser in 2005-and in confronting gender ambiguity and sexual fluidity in the source texts, both translators followed the traditionally assumed gendering of the sonnets, with Fiser maintaining neutrality in a slightly larger proportion of the sonnets than Menart (44% and 37% respectively).

Automated summary

Shakespeare's Sonnets (1609) are traditionally divided into two groups: sonnets 1-126 celebrate a handsome young man, while sonnets 127-154 address a dark lady. However, it is impossible to determine the number of addressees and their genders in the Sonnets. Out of the 139 sonnets with one addressee, 115 have no gender preference (83%), 14 are about a man, and 10 are about a woman. Six sonnets have (at least) two addressees, and the rest are about abstract concepts. Two Slovenian translations by Janez Menart in 1965 and Srecko Fiser in 2005 have been published, both following the traditionally assumed gendering of the sonnets. Fiser maintains neutrality in a slightly larger proportion of the sonnets compared to Menart (44% and 37% respectively).