Sonnet CXXXIV Analysis

So, now I have confess'd that he is thine,
And I myself am mortgaged to thy will,
Myself I'll forfeit, so that other mine
Thou wilt restore, to be my comfort still:
But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,
For thou art covetous and he is kind;
He learn'd but surety-like to write for me
Under that bond that him as fast doth bind.
The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take,
Thou usurer, that put'st forth all to use,
And sue a friend came debtor for my sake;
So him I lose through my unkind abuse.
Him have I lost; thou hast both him and me:
He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.

.: Explication :.


Sonnet CXXXIV
"So Now I have confess'd that he is thine
And I myself am mortgag'd to thy will,"

The first line of the poem is an unreserved declaration of love to the dark lady. Throughout the poem, the speaker talks of himself as two different persons. He talks in the first person, a man in love with the dark lady, a body driven by his heart. However, he talks of his soul as a different person, "that other mine". His soul is totally surrendered to the fact that he is madly in love; while the other seems to merely deny it. This inference is supported by the fact that the sonnet preceding this one (Sonnet CXXXIII) exposes this triumvirate: "Me from myself thy cruel eye hath taken, And my next self thou harder hast engross'd: Of him, myself, and thee". The trinity of this poem, rather than a religious reference is a common conflict between an internal motive, say…lust and reason. His split nature throughout the poem is emphasized by the fact that the speaker distances his soul from himself by referring to it in the third person. An internal battle emerges out of the poem, a conflict of interests where the soul is bound to the body, yet its interests are different. In a constant struggle to find peace within him, the character confronts the dilemma and speaks as if directly to the dark lady.
Another aspect of the poem which is of interest is the peculiar use of financial language. Words such as "mortgag'd", "bond", "usurer", "debtor" and "pays the whole" and the recurrent theme of slave-hood emphasize the importance of money in the sonnet. Thus, Shakespeare degrades his subject's feelings to a mere financial transaction. Though far from being a prostitute, the concepts discussed certainly make the Dark Lady seem egotistic and rather disinterested in the speaker. The speaker seems to have lent his soul to the dark lady and he cannot have it back. He states: "Him have I lost, both him and me", clearly making the Dark Lady seem cruel and disinterested much like money.
The Structure of the poem is in a classic Iambic Pentameter with the rhyming sequence: "ababcdcdefefgg". However, Shakespeare uses twice the same rhyming sequence; he uses "free" and "me" twice in the poem, emphasizing the point of the poem is asking for emancipation from the dark lady's "chains".
In addition to the clever rhymes Shakespeare uses, his characters are all represented in proportional quantity. Indeed Shakespeare refers to the poet as himself eight times, refers to the Dark Lady eight times and mentions the speaker's soul eight times. This mathematical precision is clearly intended and it adds to the beauty of the poem as a whole. This seemingly random precision also contradicts the premature themes that emerge form this poem. At first one might think that the poem is tilted in favor of the dark lady, however, as the poem unfolds, the dark lady the man and his heart are actually all in a symbiotic triangle of interdependence.
Shakespeare intended to write Sonnet CXXXIV to expose men that undergo unrequited love, a taboo subject in his time. This poem reaches in to the soul of the person that is feeling that emotion, the emotion of a one way love, or a love affected or perpetuated for financial gain. This poem talks of a love that has little distinction from cold transactions. The constant feeling that your soul is with that other person is haunting and degrading and it's all in this poem.


| Posted on 2007-01-23 | by a guest