Sonnet 29: Is It Love?
Shakespearean sonnets established a new kind of poetry in history. Many experts have analyzed these texts and they have even classified them in groups. That classification influences possible interpretations of the poems predetermining the reader response towards the poems. However, Shakespearean sonnet 29 reveals how love brings profound suffering to a person. The use of ironic phrases is extremely relevant to convey this meaning. For example, the heroic couplet at the end of the poem shows how love actually brings pain to his life. It says: “For thy sweet love rememb’red such wealth brings” (line 13). The use of words such as “sweet” and “wealth” in this line is sarcastic. In fact, this love that the speaker is talking about brings him suffering. It also shows frustration because the speaker has other expectations about his lover. For instance, in the first quatrain, the speaker blames his undesirable fate on his lover. It says: “When in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes…/ And look upon myself and curse my fate” (lines 1, 4). The speaker claims that all his deep suffering is his lover’s fault. He has no hope in his life and does not believe in being happy again. In line 12, the speaker reveals his desperation when he “From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate” asking for mercy to overcome that painful process. The state described in Shakespearean sonnet 29 cannot be called love because, ideally, real love neither hurt nor cause disgrace to a person. Real love does not bring suffering to a person’s life and does not make it miserable as the speaker in this sonnet is.
Death in Shakespearean Sonnet 73
Shakespearean sonnet 73 shows how human beings are destined to die. Death is totally inevitable in life; there is no life without death. The speaker is talking about his own death. He thinks that he will die soon. The sonnet is addressed to his lover. It seems that his lover does not care about the speakers’ death. The speaker depicts his actual state as sorrowful and desperate. He seems to be in the last time of his life, and he is alone. He describes all his sadness as a scene in fall when he claims: “That time of the year thou mayst in me behold/ When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang” (lines 1-2). In fall, everything seems to be sadder and more silent. His life and his soul are compared to a day in which everything seems to come to an end. He exaggerates his state to make his lover to feel sorry for him. The speaker is asking his lover for mercy. His lover makes his life more miserable because of her indifference. In the heroic couplet, he tries to convince her by saying:” This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,/ To love that well which thou must leave ere long” (lines 13-14). The purpose of all the depiction about his death is to try to create a sense of guilt in his lover. However, he is sure that his lover is not going to be there when his life comes to an end. It seems that his lover actually hates him and does not care if he is dead or alive. The inevitability of his death creates desperation on him. He says that in him “Thou seest the twilight of such day as after sunset fadeth in the west” (lines 5-6). His death will be soon and he is desperate about being alone and facing this difficult process alone. Death is an unavoidable part of human life. It always generates fear and desperation when people think about what they could have done in a better way, and now they do not have time to fix anything. The idea of being alone at the end of his life makes the speaker beg his lover for mercy and company.
Destruction in Sonnets 64 and 65
The speaker in sonnets 64 and 65 denounces how human beings destroy valuable elements in life. These two sonnets are analyzed together because they deal with the destruction of wonderful buildings and human nature through time. In the first stanza of sonnet 64, the speaker shows a sorrowful tone when he says: “When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defaced/ The rich, proud cost of outworn buried age” (lines 1-2). In these lines, the speaker is trying to remind the audience of all the beautiful buildings that human beings have destroyed because of ambition and power. It is a reference to the empire and the construction of England and all the wars that devastated many buildings that are not going to be constructed again. In sonnet 65, the speaker deals again with the fragility of the buildings and of human beings. He says: “Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea/ But sad mortality o’erways their power” (lines 1-2). Nothing is strong enough to resist human destructive nature. Everything in life can be affected by the strong power of destruction that people have. Human beings like to, ironically, make beautiful constructions and then destroy them to show their power. The speaker also compares the demolition of buildings to the destruction of human nature when he says: “When sometime lofty towers I see down-rased/ and brass eternal slave to mortal rage” (lines 3-4). The “rage” that human beings possess in their souls is manifested in their necessity of eliminating all the beauty that they once created. Human beings have lost many values that were intrinsically related to their nature and behaviors. They have reached a state in which they are no longer able to stop and control their destructive nature. When the speaker says: “I have seen such interchange of state, or state itself confounded to decay,” in sonnet 64, he reveals his total disagreement to those behaviors and how it seems to be a strong negative change without reversal (lines 9-10). Even though it seems to be a completely negative scenario, the speaker reveals hope at the end of sonnet 65. He says that “in black ink my love may still shine bright” to give the idea that through literature everything that is beautiful can be depicted. The descriptions made in literature of the most wonderful elements and feelings in life can give a perspective to future generations of everything that is beautiful in life now even if at the end it is destroyed by human beings.
By Noelia Zamora
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