Theme Analysis of Shakespeares Sonnet #29 - Literature Essay Samples

This sonnet is narrated by a man whose emotions are completely at the mercy of another. Its theme involves the vulnerability of the narrators disposition and the power of love. Just when he reaches the lowest point of his depression, the addressee of the poem enters his mind and cures him of his misery.Shakespeare cleverly uses a recurring theme of heaven to help portray the broader theme of the poem. In describing his helplessness, he writes, I trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries. . . Here, bootless is used to represent the futility of his cries, or prayers to heaven. The diction, however, is extremely important in this context. The word bootless is also worthy of notice because it represents the hindrance of motion, since it literally means without boots, and without boots, it may become difficult to walk. This is contrasted later with an image in which the narrator likens his souls uplifting to the lark at break of day arising. Though the lark sings from sullen eart h, its song goes straight to heaven. The reader may interpret the word sullen as a gloomy ill humor, producing a dull, mournful tone, or moody silence, as seen from the NED. The latter two definitions are more applicable to our discussion; they define the contrast between the mournful tone or the silence of the earth and the bright song of the lark. In the same way the larks song is unfettered, when the narrator thinks about this person, his state sings hymns to heavens gate. Whereas before, in his dejected state, his prayers were futile and motionless, now his prayers are mobile, and, therefore answerable. The image of the lark is common in Shakespeares works. Indeed, in act three, scene five of Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet, the two lovers are speaking of whether the song they have just heard was that of the nightingale or that of the lark. Romeo replies to Juliet, It was the lark, the herald of the morn. . . Therefore, the lark also signifies the coming of morning, an ima ge which further enhances the narrators spiritual ascent.The theme of the sonnet also emerges from a consistent motif of terms indicating affluence, which is suggested by the presence of words such as rich, possessed, wealth, and kings. The NED holds that the seventeenth-century meaning of the word wealth was spiritual well-being. Shakespeare uses this theme in an ironic setting, since these words are, in fact, used to help characterize the narrators misfortune. The second quatrain focuses on how the narrator envies the strengths of other men. He is in such a dejected and outcast state, that he desires . . .this mans art and that mans scope. . . The NED tells us that in the Elizabethan period, art meant any kind of skill, and that scope could be taken to mean reach or range of mental activity. The line which reads, With what I most enjoy contented least. . . is the best indication that the narrator has reached a low point. He is literally saying that he is in such a bad dispo sition that he now hates what he once enjoyed most. As we read on, this image is contrasted with the statement in the last couplet which reads: For thy sweet love remembred such wealth brings/ that then I scorn to change my state with kings. In other words, the thought of this person makes him so happy that he would not change his fortune with any other man not even the richest of kings. This beautiful language, especially pleasing to the ear because of the iambic pentameter, summarizes the theme in the last couplet, as is customary in Shakespeares sonnets.The turning point between his state of depression and his uplifting realization is represented at the beginning of the third quatrain. He writes: Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee and then my state. . . The diction in these lines is most likely not an accident. The NED defines haply as by chance or by accident. When in the midst of his depression, the narrator only thinks of the person by chance. This is also visible when he writes, For thy sweet love remembred . . . because the word remembred suggests that he was not thinking of the person beforehand. This, to me, gives the impression that the addressee has been somehow temporarily removed from his life. For he never mentions the origin of his melancholy depicted in the first two quatrains, and the reader is left to conjecture what I have hereby mentioned. I also believe, however, that it is no mistake that haply is a close neighbor of happily. Thus, the diction allows the theme to be revealed through a turning point, or change in texture.