Shakespeare as a Stalker

Knowing the Difference Between Love and Stalking Could Save Your Life

 (From the Huffington Post)
Glen Skoler, a Forensic Psychologist based in Washington DC, has posed the question of whether the most famous love obsession in western literature - Shakespeare's sonnets for his 'dark lady' - reveal that the writer at the center of the Western canon of literature, was in fact an obsessed stalker. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dr-raj-persaud/valentines-day-love-stalking_b_2676822.html

Published in a book entitled 'The Psychology of Stalking: Clinical and Forensic Perspectives', Dr Skoler points out that Shakespeare's sonnets, just like obsessed stalkers, reveals him trying to control the object of his love with threats, blackmail and forebodings of the unpredictable nature of his anger at rejection, if pushed too far.
Skoler argues that Shakespeare's choice of weapon are words, so, for example, in Sonnet 140 he targets slander - accusing an Elizabethan woman of adultery - in an angry threat - to try and pressure and control her.
Skoler contends that these famous love sonnets should really be better termed 'hate sonnets', as Shakespeare's spurned affirmations of love become increasingly vicious, threatening, obscene, paranoid, irrational and desperate.
Today, around half of all stalkers are ex-partners, and up to one in four of the population have suffered from being stalked. So many people start relationships not realising that the particular kind of possessive love exhibited by obsessional lovers, could turn romance into a nightmare, and even lead to murder.
For example, a man accused of stalking his estranged wife was wearing body-armour and carrying weapons, when Pennsylvania police pulled him over, as he was following her to work last week.
Flint Staton had a loaded .40 caliber handgun, a stun baton, a machete, a variety of knives, a baseball bat, brass knuckles and other weapons in his car, as well as 39 pieces of paper depicting various forms of violence and killing, handcuffs, a black stiletto-heeled shoe, duct tape, several boxes of gloves, a ski mask and a Valentine's Day card bearing the message "A Promise for My Wife," according to official reports.
The case is a reminder of the sobering, ground-breaking research published by lead author Judith MacFarlane from Texas Woman's University in 1999, finding that 76 per cent of intimate partner female murder is preceded by stalking. Stalking was revealed to be associated with lethal and near lethal violence against women.