Sonnet 147

Sonnet 147 is almost bittersweet. For the majority of the sonnet, Shakespeare declares that he is lovesick for a woman. He says “my love is like a fever” (Shakespeare 1) and he yearns for anything that will prolong his “disease”, which would be the fever. He is desperate for the love of this woman and profoundly hurt because he knows that he cannot have it. The last two lines seem to change drastically, from lovesick and hurt to angry. He says that the woman is not as beautiful and charming as he thought she was, and she is indeed “black as hell and dark as night”. Although, it is possible that he is only saying that out of rage, because he still loves her despite how hurt he is. In my research, I found that this sonnet was actually written about Shakespeare’s alleged mistress, who was in fact African American. This could be a reference to sonnet 130, where he says her breasts aren’t snow white but he loves her anyway, because being extremely white was considered most socially acceptable at the time.

Sonnet 130

There is a slight sense of sarcasm in sonnet 130. It is almost a parody of the other love poems and sonnets at the time, which always compared women to the loveliest things and harped on their beauty. Shakespeare’s sonnet 130 uses simile, saying “My mistresses eyes are nothing like the sun” and metaphor by saying “black wires grow on her head”. To me, saying that a woman is not at all beautiful is a very odd and offensive way to tell her that you love her, but it gets the point across. All in all, I guess the theme of this sonnet is that Shakespeare is telling everyone that he knows this woman is not the prettiest person out there, but he love her no matter what. It is even possible that he wasn’t meaning to be unkind while describing the woman, he was just trying to make a point about the sonnets of the time by mocking them.

Sonnet 129

Sonnet 129 is one of the first of the Dark Lady sonnets. This particular sonnet is one of the more violent and dark sonnets. Throughout the poem, Shakespeare uses all three tenses. An interesting point to be made about the structure of the sonnet is that the first twelve lines of the sonnet are one long sentence. It is almost as if Shakespeare is going on some sort of rant to express his feelings. Also in the first twelve lines, he seems to have very “up and down” feelings. He goes from something negative to something positive and vice versa in several lines before the shift, which happens in line eleven. All of the lines previous to that were expressing Shakespeare’s dislike and displeasure of something. After that, he seems to have accepted love and he realizes that it is the way it is and there is nothing that can be done to change it.

Sonnet 116

Sonnet 116 is different from most of the other sonnets I have written a reflection for so far. It is the most pleasant, and it has a rather optimistic and “lovey dovey” tone. Shakespeare is essentially trying to convey to the young man that love is eternal. He says that love is an ever-fixed mark, which at the time meant a lighthouse. Lighthouses symbolize light and hope, and are forever unmoving. He also compares love to the North Star, and many people look to the North Star for guidance. Once again, “Time” is capitalized, suggesting that Time is personified. “Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle’s compass come;” insinuates that love is in fact still mortal, but is not controlled by time. Here, Time is compared to the Grim Reaper and his sickle. Also, there are a few references to legal terms, such as writ in the last line of the sonnet.

Sonnet 73

From sonnet 73, I get the sense that Shakespeare is warning the young man to be cautionary and to appreciate youth. He is almost using himself as an example of aging, saying that he resembles the time of year when leaves on the trees turn yellow or have fallen, and the cold winter weather is on the way. He is alluding to the fact that death is inevitable. Shakespeare compares death to night and sleep, saying that all three are comparable. The first comparison is death and night in the seventh line, which reads “which by and by black night doth take away”. By saying that black night takes away the sunset fading in the West, it signifies an end. In the very next line, Shakespeare writes “Death’s second self that seals up all in rest”, which compares death to sleep. Correspondingly, another powerful line from the sonnet is line 10, because he refers to himself as the ashes of the fire of youth. This yet again refers to the indication of death.

Sonnet 55

Sonnet 55 starts off similarly to sonnet 18. Shakespeare notes that not even marble or gilded monuments will outlive his sonnet, and therefore his subject, the young man Mister W.H. He says that Mister W.H will outlive said monuments which have been begrimed by time. Shakespeare references Greek mythology in the seventh line of the sonnet, which he usually never does. He writes “Nor Mars his sword nor war’s quick fire shall burn”, meaning not even godly power can destroy the memory of the young man. In the tenth line, there is a play on words, Shakespeare being the wordsmith that he was. “Pace forth” could mean one of two things. At first glance, it seems to mean to keep walking onwards. When looking deeper into the meaning of the sonnet, it can be symbolic of the theme of the poem. Shakespeare is saying how the young man will live on longer than marble and gold through his poem, and “pacing forth” is another way of implying that the young man will have a sense of immortality through his writing.

Sonnet 18

Sonnet 18 was the only sonnet I was familiar with when we started the Shakespeare sonnet unit. Here, Shakespeare is comparing the young man, as the first line reads, to a summer’s day. Shakespeare is essentially saying that his subject is flawless. He writes that summer days can be too hot and they aren’t always perfectly sunny, and therefore the young man is lovelier than a summer’s day. In line 9 of the sonnet, Shakespeare says “But thy eternal summer shall not fade”. I thought this to be a bit contradictory, because in previous sonnets (two and twelve) he writes that everything beautiful comes to an end, and nothing can survive the forces of time. Also, Shakespeare writes that the poem “gives life” to the young man and will essentially keep him alive forever. This is similar to how Shakespeare promised the young man he would live on, but he said he would achieve it by having children because he and his beauty would live on through his lineage. 

Sonnet 12

In his twelfth sonnet, Shakespeare reminds the young man that nothing lasts forever. He uses harsh comparisons such as “the brave day sunk in hideous night” (Shakespeare 2) to make it clear that growing old is tragic and dreadful. In the last few lines of the sonnet, the speaker is suggesting to the young man that the only way to defy and survive the ravages of Time is to have children. When Time takes you away, your children will be there to replace you. Throughout the poem, Shakespeare capitalizes “time”, personifying it and giving it a character in the sonnet. He gives it a negative character, because he is telling the young man all the damage it can cause, portraying Time as the enemy. In this particular sonnet, I think Shakespeare has taken his determination for the young man to have children just a little bit too far. If he doesn’t want to have kids yet it’s not the end of the world, and bringing up death when the young man is so early in his life is a bit superfluous. 

Sonnet 2

The second sonnet by Shakespeare is similar to the first in that he is trying to convince the young man to have children. He is trying to influence the young man to have children by saying that he can justify his old age when the time comes. He is saying that if he grows old and loses his good looks, he will be able to use raising children as his vindication. Shakespeare is also trying to tell him in the last two lines that having a child would be like being born again. The last line reads “And see they blood warm when thou feel’st it cold.” (Shakespeare 14). I think this means that the young man, both his beauty and youth, will have a chance to “live again” through his children. Another way to look at this sonnet is that it means he wants the young man to take advantage of his youth and “seize the day”.

Sonnet 1

The first sonnet of Shakespeare’s one hundred and fifty four sonnets is directed at the young man, Mister W.H. Since it is said that the young man’s parents hired a poet, Shakespeare, to write poems to persuade Mister W.H. to get married and have children, this poem seems to do just that. The speaker of the sonnet is saying that it would be selfish for the young man to not reproduce and keep all his beauty to himself. He also says that if he has children, his beauty will be preserved and live on forever in his child. He is being encouraged to “spread” his beauty and share it with the rest of the world. Also, I think that this sonnet in particular shows the love that the speaker also had for the young man. Whether it was a deep love or not, standards of the time were different and homosexuality wasn’t viewed any differently, and it wasn’t even a concept that society understood at that time.