It strikes one as obvious that any artistic creation – whether it be music, painting, sculpture, poetry, prose, or any other creative work – would have within it the characteristics and personality of the creator. Look at the twisted, often tormented paintings of Picasso or listen to the complex, near-perfect mathematical harmonies of Beethoven and you will find yourself making assumptions about their intellect, personality, torments and loves. More so than painting and music, the creations of a writer contain details about the author: who they are, what they think, how they feel, what they believe, and more.
Reading Shakespeare’s 154 Sonnets is almost like reading a private diary. They are so full of emotion, personality, conflict, disdain, beauty, and even simple day-to-day life details. They cover a wide range of topics, from friendship to love, trust to betrayal, disdain to admiration, youth to age, wealth, health, travel, advice, and more. The quantity of them – 154 – their complexity, the obvious emotion and the large number of topics covered leads one to believe without doubt that these are sincere writings, by a sincere, intelligent, emotional author.
The tone of most of the sonnets show a man who realizes he is past his youth, but not elderly yet. He refers to himself as old yet at the same time, almost refuses to give in to old age. “Full many a glorious morning have I seen” (33.1) and “When forty winters shall besiege thy brow” (2.1) sounds like someone who has experienced at least forty years of life. Lines such as “Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time” (3.12), “My glass shall not persuade me I am old” (22.1), and “When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced” (64.1) show that even though he sees the signs of aging when he looks in the mirror, he doesn’t feel elderly. On the contrary, he often feels that he may be in the best years of his life.
At the same time, he is aware of his own eventual death. Yet lines such as “No longer mourn for me when I am dead” (71.1) and “After my death (dear love) forget me quite” (72.3) show that he wishes those who care about him move on with their lives – not mourn him – once he is gone. He may even think his death a blessing for those he loves, as shown in Sonnets 72 and 74, amongst others:
My name be buried where my body is,
And live no more to shame nor me, nor you. (72.11-12)
So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,
The prey of worms, my body being dead (74.9-10)
There is a certain amount of fatalism in these lines, a feeling that death is inevitable but, perhaps, not necessarily an evil. By no means, however, does he look forward to death: “Shall worms inheritors of this excess / Eat up thy charge? is this thy body's end?” (146.7-8) show someone who finds death rather distasteful, that the thought of his body being eaten up by worms is a poor use of one’s body. He compares death and eating again in sonnet 146, yet shows again some fatalism, even pragmatism about it:
So shall thou feed on death, that feeds on men,
And death once dead, there's no more dying then. (146.13-14)
This is a man who spends a lot of time thinking about death while living a full life. His thoughts on death are the subject of at least another 14 sonnets. It is almost too simplistic to state that he is obsessed with his own death, much better would be these are the words of a man who is struggling to come to terms with the concept of his own eventual demise.
Without doubt, he is educated. The simple fact that he is literate – able to read and write during an era where illiteracy was the norm – is more than enough proof that he is educated. His use of language, his large vocabulary, and especially his use of legal language such as “Thy adverse party is thy advocate / And ‘gainst my self a lawful plea commence” (35.10-11), shows him to be very well-educated and very likely trained in the law. Further examples of his use of legal language include:
“To leave poor me, thou hast the strength of laws,
Since why to love, I can allege no cause.” (49.13-14).
Thou usurer that put'st forth all to use,
And sue a friend, came debtor for my sake, (134.10-11)
Even in the 21st century, it is rare to find an average, every-day person who uses words like “allege” and “usurer,” much less someone who would mix words of love with legal terminology. Such words are the words of someone who has a lot of experience in matters of law, and very likely, someone who has been educated in the law.
It is likely that he was quite well-off, a man of honor, perhaps even a noble, although his current situation is not as well-off as it once was. The fact that he is obviously educated leads one to believe that he probably came from a good, at least somewhat wealthy family: very few people outside of the wealthy and noble were able to afford education of their children during the time the Sonnets were written. He shows quite a bit of displeasure at his current state of affairs, and refers to himself as one living with disgrace in at least five Sonnets (25, 29, 30, 33, and 111), and best demonstrates this when he says “When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state” (29.1-2). This is a man whose life is not what it what once was, and he “beweeps” his current state – he cries for what he has lost. He looks “upon my self and curse(s) my fate” (29.4). However, “I summon up remembrance of things past, / I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought” (30.2-3) shows not just someone who is regretful of what he has lost, in the way of material things, but also of someone who perhaps regrets opportunities not taken, or even opportunities lost.
Why he has lost his material goods, his wealth, his reputation, honor and good name is not entirely clear, but that he has lost such is obvious, especially when he states “Thence comes it that my name receives a brand” (111.5). In Sonnet 25, he almost derides the boasting of people who are still “in favour with their stars” (1), and “of public honour and proud titles boast” (2); this sounds like sour-grapes, like a person who resents those who still have that which he has lost.
He has not only lost his wealth and good reputation, he also has lost his physical health and is very likely lame. While “When I shall see thee frown on my defects” (49.2) could refer to defects of wealth, personality, or reputation, combined with the thought that eyes of one he loves looking upon him with pity – “ “Thine eyes I love, and they as pitying me” (132.1) it becomes more compelling that there is something physically wrong with his body. He becomes very literal that he has been injured when he says that he has been “… made lame by Fortune’s dearest spite” (37.3). Connect the three lines, along with other references to his physical self being in less-than-perfect health in other sonnets, it is evident that he is injured in a way that results in him being lame.
He has a complicated, almost twisted relationship with two people, who are often referred to as the “Young Man” and the “Dark Lady.” The young man is someone who he has befriended, and over time, grown to love deeply. This young man is someone whom he admires greatly for his physical beauty, for his personality, and for how he makes Shakespeare feel about himself. The existence of this young man in the author’s life gives great satisfaction and meaning to the author’s life. “Then happy I that love and am beloved / Where I may not remove nor be removed” (25.13-14) shows that by virtue of this young man’s love for him – and his love for the young man – he achieves a certain immortality. By being loved – and loving – he remains remembered, unforgotten, and his life even after he is long gone has had value.
In return for his love – for the belief that by loving and being loved he gains a certain immortality –Shakespeare returns the favor by immortalizing the young man in his poetry. Quite arrogantly, he believes that by writing about the young man’s beauty and love - “When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st” (18.12) - the young man will live forever. That “So long as men can breath, or eyes can see, / So long lives this, and this gives life to thee” shows that as long as his poetry to the young man remains, so does the beauty of the young man and his love for him.
While he professes great love and admiration for this young man in many sonnets, it is by no means homosexual love. On the contrary, in one of the funniest sonnets, he compares the young man’s beauty to that of a woman but also as a prank that Mother Nature played on him by making the young man a man:
Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,
And by addition me of thee defeated,
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
But since she prick’d thee out for women’s pleasure,
Mine be thy love and thy love’s use their treasure. (20.10-14)
“Prick’d thee out for women’s pleasure” (20.13) is both a play on words and a sexual double-entendre. It is meant to show that by Nature’s adding a single thing to the young man it makes it impossible for Shakespeare to physically consummate his love with the young man, and also that he views it as a prank or joke played on him. The last line shows that the author is not pleased with the fact that women get to have all the fun with the young man – that women get to enjoy the “treasure” of the young man that he himself is denied.
He gives a great deal of advice to this young man in many of the sonnets and is almost preoccupied with the thought that this young man must procreate. Lines such as “Die single and thine image dies with thee” (3.14) and “From fairest creatures we desire increase, / that thereby beauty’s rose might never die (1.1-2) show that the author believes the young man is so beautiful that he is obligated to procreate – that to not have children is almost an insult to nature. He wonders if the young man’s refusal to marry and have children is out of fear of causing hurt to whomever he marries should he die. This shows quite a bit of insight into the nature of the young man: that he views the young man as very sensitive and caring to the feelings of others (9.1-2).
Shakespeare eventually writes of an affair that he has with a woman referred to as the “Dark Lady,” an affair that he has much mixed emotions about. He recognizes that he is an adulterer – “Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear” (110.3) and “Love is my sin…” (142.1) and that he is not proud of his actions. Especially by referring to his love as being sold cheaply and as a sin shows a man who is not proud of his affair, and even though he does take some responsibility for his actions, it is “she that makes me sin, awards me pain” (141.13-14) – it is her fault that he cheats. Even though he blames her for his cheating, he does recognize that it is, ultimately, his own action that is adultery – “In act thy bed-vow broke” (152.3). That it is he who has committed adultery by breaking his own bed vows. It is almost like he is saying “yea, I did it, but the Devil made me do it, but despite that, I did it.”
There is no way to determine exactly who the Dark Lady is, or if her darkness is one of actual physical looks or just a metaphor for her dark soul, or the darkness that she has brought to the author’s life. Some lines such as “…her breasts are dun” (130.3) and “black wires grow on her head” (130.4) seem to be very specific and literal, and make it easy to assume that she was other than Caucasian, but at the same time, he often refers to her personality and lack of honor as black. That she is “who art as black as hell, as dark as night” (147.14) and “the worser spirit a woman coloured ill” (144.4) shows that Shakespeare didn’t look well upon the Dark Lady’s nature; that despite enjoying her body, he looked down upon her as someone without honor.
Worse than the Dark Lady being someone without honor, she apparently gave Shakespeare the gift that keeps on giving: venereal disease, most likely syphilis. The lines “Only my plague thus far I count my gain, / That she makes me sin, awards me pain” (141.14) not only can be looked upon as referring to his adultery with her as pain, but that the sin of sleeping with her gave him literal pain. Especially when you consider that his only “gain” from this affair is a “plague,” it becomes easy to believe he contracted some sort of venereal disease from her. He shows exasperation that she “…may detain, but not still keep her treasure!” (126.10) could easily be read that her “treasure” is something that one does not want, and without doubt, no one wants the “treasure” of venereal disease.
Giving further support to the idea that the author has venereal disease, he states that he is “past cure” (147.9) and that because of this, he may in fact no longer be able to enjoy sexual intercourse. Reading “Now all is done, have what shall have no end, / Mine appetite I never more will grind” (110.9-10) it is easy to suppose that “what shall have no end” is venereal disease. Especially since there was no cure for syphilis at the time this was written, and that he can no longer fulfill his sexual needs – that his “appetite” can no longer be satisfied. The word “grind” is easily a sexual double-entendre, referring both to appetites unmet and the literal physical action of intercourse. He knew before he got involved with her (or anyone else) that venereal disease is a possibility, in fact not just he but everyone knows this. Yet, despite such knowledge, he and others still take the risk, and often pay the price. This is best shown by the lines “All this the world well knows yet none knows well, / To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell” (129.13-14). Sex as a heaven that leads men to hell, of course, could be a reference to the sin of adultery, but at the same time, could easily be a reference to the hell of venereal disease.
Eventually, much to the distress of Shakespeare, the young man and the Dark Lady get together and apparently have an affair. Shakespeare feels betrayed by this – “Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee, / Thine by thy beauty being false to me” (41.13-14) shows that the young man is tempted by the beauty of the Dark Lady and that this not only disturbs Shakespeare, but makes him feel betrayed. Although “they beauty being false to me” (41.14) could also be yet another reference to the prank that Mother Nature played on Shakespeare by making this young man physically unavailable to him. “That god forbid, that made me first your slave, / I should in thought control your times of pleasure” (58.1-2) very clearly shows that he realizes cannot control with whom the young man finds pleasure with, that to try to do so may even be against God.
He not only feels betrayed by the young man for getting involved with her, but also feels that the Dark Lady has betrayed him and his love for her. Because despite everything, he does still love her. In Sonnet 42, he speaks on his love for her, that it causes him grief that the young man has become involved with her, and that he feels that he has been treated badly by her:
That thou hast her it is not all my grief,
And yet it may be said I loved her dearly,
That she hath thee is of my wailing chief,
A loss in love that touches me more nearly.
Loving offenders thus I will excuse ye,
Thou dost love her, because thou know'st I love her,
And for my sake even so doth she abuse me, (42.1.7)
This affair between the young man and the Dark Lady leads to much angst and tortured thoughts for Shakespeare, especially because he knows that should the young man consummate his affair with the Dark Lady, he too will become infected. “For that deep wound it gives my friend and me” (133.2) could refer to the emotional pain that this affair is causing him, but more likely refers to the eventual contraction of venereal disease that will happen. Especially when you consider that line in combination with “Till my bad angel fire my good one out” (144.14) and “Ah wherefore with infection should he live” (67.1) you can easily conclude that Shakespeare is much concerned that the young man will become infected. He actually advises the young man to “…fear her O thou minion of her pleasure, / She may detain, but not still keep her treasure!” (126.7-10). That he should be afraid of her, even though he may have already become enslaved with her pleasure, and that he will become sick from her.
In conclusion, Shakespeare’s Sonnets show us a man in his 40s, who used to be wealthy and likely of nobility but is no longer, that he is educated, heterosexual, an adulterer, lame and sick with venereal disease. Which doesn’t lead one to think of him very well… until one considers that we also learn that he is a very thoughtful, emotional, loving, sincere man; one very concerned with the meaning of life, honor, and justice. He is one who has no illusions about himself and his faults but at the same time, recognizes his own strengths. There is much more about the life of Shakespeare that can be concluded from his writings… from simple things like traveling by horse (50) to complex beliefs on the meaning of life and the nature of immortality. Finally, though, we can learn his name … “And then thou lov'st me for my name is Will” (136.14).
Works Cited
Shakespeare, William. Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Ed. Stephen Booth. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.
Written for Professor Stephenson's Masterpieces of Literature I class at Pikes Peak Community College, 12th November 2003.
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