About Shakespeare's Love Sonnets
No single sonnet can be picked out without looking at the meaning of the sonnets together. Only by analyzing the entire set of sonnets can one discern their purpose as set forth by Shakespeare. For example, a sonnet with a certain meaning may be immediately followed by a sonnet conveying the opposite message. The first one can not be discussed without discussing the second because the contradiction defines the nature of its meaning. The sonnets build on, cancel out, and are formed by each other. The meanings of the sonnets are all relative.
The bulk of Shakespeare's sonnets were written between 1594 and 1597. During the 1590's, there was a sonnet vogue in England. Shakespeare was quick to follow this popular trend. Sonnets were thought to be personal poetry and usually circulated among one's friends and close acquaintances. It was considered unnecessary to publish sonnets and undesirable to write them for the purpose of being published. Because there were no copyright laws in 16th century England, Thomas Thorpe (who somehow obtained copies), was able to publish Shakespeare's 154 sonnets without the knowledge or consent of their author. The numerous, obvious errors found in the sonnets are a testament to the fact that Shakespeare did not prepare them for or see them through the printing press. Most of the sonnets are addressed to, or mention the "fair boy" or the "dark-lady." Since Shakespeare never made reference to their actual names, there has been much dogmatic speculation as to the identity of these two people.
The first 126 sonnets are clearly addressed to a young man , whom Shakespeare describes as, "beauty's rose" (Sonnet 1) and often refers to as "my love." Shakespeare clearly defines his love for the young man as non- sexual, in Sonnet 20. In the first 27 sonnets, Shakespeare urges the young man to get married and have children. In the next 100 sonnets, Shakespeare,at times, accuses the young man of betrayal and states to him his faults, praises the young man's beauty, reluctantly accepts that the young man and his mistress have had an affair , mourns his absence, and ultimately forgives the young man for all of his grievances and apologizes for his own infidelity.
The remaining sonnets tell about the "dark lady," presumably Shakespeare's mistress. He describes her as his "worser spirit" (Sonnet 144) and states that she is married. The sonnets depict a painful and erotic relationship in which the poet remains attached to his mistress through a combination of love, and even stronger lust.
The word "time" is used over 80 times in the sonnets. Shakespeare describes time as a "bloody tyrant" (Sonnet 16), "devouring," and "swift-footed" (Sonnet 19). Time is often personified and appears capitalized, like in a name, in several sonnets. Time is making Shakespeare old and near "hideous night" (Sonnet 12) or death. And time will eventually rob the beauty of the young man. In Sonnet 15, Shakespeare ponders time, "When I consider every thing that grows Holds in perfection for but a little moment.... Where wasteful time debateth with decay...." Shakespeare presents time as the protagonist and aggressor throughout his sonnets.
The first 27 sonnets propose one method by which Shakespeare feels time can be fought. He urges the young man to have children so that his beauty will be preserved in posterity and therefore time will not have won the battle. The first two lines of the first sonnet present this theme: "From fairest creatures we desire increase, That thereby beauty's rose might never die... ."
In Sonnet 11, Shakespeare tells the young man that when he grows old he will be young in his children and that " Herein lives wisdom, beauty and increase; Without this, folly, age and cold decay." The poet goes on to explain to the young man that nature has given him a gift of beauty so that he may reproduce it. The couplet sums it up: "She [mother nature] carved thee for her seal, and meant thereby Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die."
Shakespeare's suggestions to the young man sometimes turn into accusations that he is hoarding the beauty which he was lent, and therefore abusing the lease. In this regard, he addresses the young man in Sonnet 4 as "Unthrifty loveliness" and " Profitless userer."
After Sonnet 17, when it seems apparent that the young man is unwilling to marry, Shakespeare presents another way in which to wage war against tyrannous time. He says that his poetry will always exist and be read and that if the young man is not alive in his posterity, through his poetry his love will be forever alive. This revelation first occurs in Sonnet 15. The poet writes in the last four lines, "...Where wasteful time debateth with decay To change your [the young man's]day of youth into sullied night; And all in war with time for love of you, As he [time] takes from you, I engraft you new." Shakespeare gracefully continues the theme in the couplets of Sonnets 18 and 19. "So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this [the poem], and this gives life to thee." (Sonnet 18) In Sonnet 19, after forbidding time from destroying the young man, Shakespeare concludes, "Yet do thy worst, old time; despite thy wrong My love shall in my verse ever live young."
The rest of the sonnets discuss all aspects of the love between the poet and the young man, and the poet and his mistress. They describe a number of circumstances in the poet's relationship with these people. The final opponent of time presented in the sonnets is explicitly stated in Sonnet 116: "Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O no, it is an ever fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wand'ring barque, Whose worth's unknown although his height be taken. Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom." The foundation for this theme was built up gradually in several of the earlier sonnets including 22 and 25, in which the poet begins to come to the conclusion that love can shelter him. The conclusion he does come to in Sonnet 116 is that love, despite time, is a constant. |