William Shakespeare’s sonnets have often been condemned by critics for their strict structural form and grammatical density. Egerton Brydges, knowledgeable in Elizabethan literature, thought them “not among the best of ... [Shakespeare’s] minor poems”, while Charles Symmons positioned them below Drummond’s. Despite the views of critics, Shakespeare’s sonnets have continued to be studied and have survived through centuries, with the English sonnet later being crowned in Shakespeare’s name.
History of the Sonnet
The sonnet as a form became known in Italy most likely in the thirteenth century. Francesco Petrarca, commonly known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian poet who in the fourteenth century raised the sonnet to its greatest Italian excellence and so gave it, for English readers, his own name. The sonnets of Shakespeare were not to surface until three centuries later, and did so in such a way that they became known as some of his greatest works. The sonnets follow a particular structure, and are conventional in their rhyme-scheme; they are comprised of three quatrains and a rhyming couplet, and are spoken in iambic pentameter.
Numerous attempts have been made to discover if Shakespeare’s sonnets are autobiographical, with many critics trying to find possible candidates for the dark lady in Sonnet 147 (such as Mary Fitton, lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth). Whether the sonnets are autobiographical or not, Sonnet 147 provides effective images and symbols, and can be analysed in these terms to come to a conclusion on the ways in which Shakespeare uses technique to generate meaning.
Analysis of Sonnet 147
Sonnet 147 follows the ‘I’-speaker on a journey to discovering who he really is and what he wants from his mistress. The first three quatrains highlight the poet’s inner struggle to cope with his lover’s infidelity as well as his embarrassment that he still desires her sexually. In the final quatrain, he realises that he must be insane as he calls his lover moral when she evidently is not. The images of decay, present in the rhyming couplets of Sonnet 146, flow in a smooth transition to emphasise the speaker’s love being compared to a fever:
So shalt thou feed on death, that feeds on men,
And death once dead, there’s no more dying then
The image of feeding continues in Sonnet 147, only now the feeding is not feeding on death but on illness. Shakespeare exploits this image through the simile in the first line, ‘my love is as a fever’, which suggests that the ‘I’-speaker is always yearning for what will prolong his disease. As the sonnet continues, his thoughts move madly, expressed in such terms as ‘frantic mad’ and ‘evermore unrest’, and the word-choice becomes increasingly dark and hollow. In the rhyming couplets, where the ‘I’-speaker asserts that his mistress is, in reality, ‘black as hell’, the reader is provided with a colour contrast to the previous quatrains, and thus drawing our attention to the speaker’s return to reason.
Structure of 'Sonnet 147'
The tight and strict structure of Sonnet 147 perhaps reflects and emphasises the speaker’s struggle to break free from the situation he is currently in. The rhyming couplet is successful in preserving the theme of the speaker’s inability to reason, with a dejected tone indicating that he is too far gone ever to regain self-confidence. Additionally, Shakespeare’s use of iambic pentameter stresses the syllables most important to the sonnet, therefore allowing the reader to take notice of the mental turmoil going on inside the poet’s head.
Context of the Shakespearean Sonnet in relation to Sonnet 147
When analysing a sonnet such as this, it is vital to consider the context in which the sonnet was written. Students and critics alike have often pondered on Shakespeare’s use of the word ‘black’ in the rhyming couplet. While it could be a play on the speaker’s lover’s complexion, it can also be taken literally in terms of his lover’s race. Sonnet 147 was written in a time where the colour black carried negative connotations and was thus associated with the devil, so perhaps his struggle is further emphasised as the love he carries for his mistress would be forbidden in the Elizabethan era. This could be explained further by the poet’s declarations that reason is betraying him:
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me
This metaphor, which suggests that his reasoning was acting as a doctor to his love, perhaps explains the forbidden nature of his desire and supports the statement that the mistress’s ethnicity complicates the situation further.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Sonnet 147 provides the reader with not only an ‘unlucky in love’ experience of the poet, but also with a context in which to place the sonnets which precede and come after this one. This sonnet returns the ‘I’-speaker to the disturbed state of the previous sonnets, and we are given the impression that the ultimate ending of this tragic story will be bleak. However, in Sonnet 151 the poet admits the relationship cannot continue as it betrays his ‘nobler part’, and then in Sonnet 152 we witness the collapse of the affair. Shakespeare’s skilled use of tone, language, rhythm, imagery and symbolism collaborate in order to generate meaning in Sonnet 147. The contrast between spirit and form helps us comprehend Elizabethan developments in poetry at the time, and Shakespeare’s skill as a poet and dramatist highlights this change effectively for modern readers.
Kevin Barr - For most of History, Anonymous was a Woman.
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