Shakespeare’s Sonnets (1609) is a collection of poems written by Shakespeare, whose conception and

production cannot be explicitly attributed to a precise time. Even if it appeared later than its inspiring
models, the collection can be allocated to the period of Sonnets’ collections’ flowering during the last
decade of the Elizabethan Era, with the printing of Astrophel and Stella and Amoretti by Philip Sidney, Delia
by Samuel Daniel and Phillis by Thomas Lodge, of which the last two were followed by a longer poem, a
complaint, just like in Shakespeare’s one. Still, Shakespeare’s collection distances itself from the older ones
because of its unusual title, the surname of the author followed by the English possessive instead of the
name of the dedicatee, and its content, the portrayal of the relationship between the poet and a young
man ruined by the sudden intromission of a dark woman that counterbalance the platonic love with a
carnal one.

Nevertheless, there are three sonnets that isolate themselves from the particulars of the relationship and
the urgency of the conflicts of the collection. Sonnet 94 is considered one of the most puzzling poems of
Shakespeare’s collection. It belongs to the group of sonnets addressed to the figure of the Fair Youth (1-
126), set near the end of a sort of micro-sequence (87-96) that stands out for the depiction of the Fair
Youth as unreliable. Generally, it deals with the requirement of moral commitment bound to the idea that
the gift of beauty carries with it an obligation to live life on the straight and narrow, whereas the following
one deals with the absolute permanence of love in a world of change. Sonnet 116, one of the most famous
of Shakespeare’s collection, belongs to the same group, set in the middle of micro-sequence (109-121) that
leaps out for the exploration of alienation and inconstancy in the relationship with his friend. They can
appear quite different: the first one opens with a description of incorruptible people whose integrity is
undermined by an accurate use of lexicon and the revealing metaphor of the flower, ending with an
eloquent epigram, whereas the second one begins with a description of unalterable love supported by a
careful use of figures of speech that slowly undermine the given definitions, ending with a coming back
down to earth. However, the models offered in these two sonnets are similar: they define and redefine
their subject in each quatrain, making it become increasingly concrete but vulnerable at once, and finally
collapse. Sonnet 129 belongs to the group of sonnets addressed to the figure of the Dark Lady (127-152),
set in the middle of six sonnets that stand out for their playful and conventional nature as well as lack of
intensity. Regardless of its position in the sequence, it can be easily seen as a ‘paradigmatic introduction’
(Thomas Neely 1977, p.91) to the Dark Lady section, because it casts ‘a retrospective light back on the two
preceding sonnets as possibly untrustworthy eulogies by a lust-driven lover’ (Duncan Jones 2007, p.372).
Generally, it deals with human desire and its effects on human mind. It begins with a ‘rude’ denunciation of
lust supported by an ‘extreme’ use of figures of speech that gradually attenuates throughout the quatrains,
ending with a sarcastically regretful acceptance of the inevitable.

Regarding the structure of these sonnets, they respect the poetical form that Shakespeare has employed
throughout his collection. The structure of the English sonnet, otherwise known as “Shakespearian”, is
undoubtedly inspired by the “Petrarchan” one, consisting of 16 lines organised in one octave with an ABBA
ABBA rhyme scheme and a sestet without a stable rhyme pattern. The English sonnet presents a structure
that is considerably different, consisting of three quatrains with an ABAB CDCD EFEF rhyme scheme and
one couplet with a GG rhyme scheme, whose thematic turn is usually set between the eighth and the ninth
line recalling the Italian model. Furthermore, the Shakespearian sonnet uses the iambic pentameter, a
rhyme scheme characterized by five feet, whose sequence is usually an unstressed syllanble followed by a
stressed. The iambic reading of these sonnets gives emphasis to some pivotal points: in sonnet 94 the
tronchaic foot at the beginning of line 8 makes it emphasize the otherness of the people who are not self-
controlled, but oversee themselves to the benefit of others, whereas in sonnet 129 the trochaic foot at the
beginning of line 3 makes it resounds with the way the speaker feels, his angrily remorsefulness and
disappointment. The use of rhetorical devices supports and boosts it: in sonnet 129 the antimetabole as
well as the midline break produced using the expressions “well knows” and “knows well” in the
penultimate line mirrors the parallelism of an entire poem, but it is soon resolved by the unbroken final line
in its imposed finality.

Regarding the content of these sonnets, they deal with different subjects using a similar argumentation: the
beloved in sonnet 94 and Love in the following one lose their ‘abstract perfection’ just as Lust lost its
‘absolute quality’ (Thomas Neely 1977, p.91). In the first and second quatrains of sonnet 94, the speaker is
depicting those who behave properly as “unmoved” and “cold”. Although, the similes are broken up by the
possibility of movement introduced by the expression “to temptation slow”, clashing with the immobility
previously implied. In the third quatrain there is a sudden change, when the speaker inserts the metaphor
of the flower: it embodies the fragile and ephemeral beauty of youth that, immerged in time’s stream, is
made vulnerable to corruption and doomed to death. The structure adopted conveys perfectly the content,
because the ever-present caesura between lines 8 and 9 is made clear by the subject’s replacement and the
addition of the metaphor: the first part describes virtuous men and what they deserve, whereas the second
part uses the recurring metaphor of the flower to refer indirectly to virtuous men, to the fair young. The
final heroic couplet blends the two key images into an epigrammatic definition, a striking sentence that
expresses a succinct truth in the form of a generalization. The first line of the couplet refers to the first
thematic segment, in which the upstanding behavior of virtuous people can turn into vicious if corrupted.
The second line comes back to the second thematic segment, in which the probable allusion to a famous
proverb suggests that youth’s beauty should be an index of goodness because of the expectation due to its
appearance, providing a key of interpretation to all the micro-sequence. The conclusion recalls the opening
sentence in its proverbial form, closing the sonnet with a circular movement. Differently, the speaker is
trying to define what love is in the first and in the second quatrains of sonnet 116. The first quatrain opens
with an allusion to the marriage service in the book of Common Prayer: it is borrowed from the marriage
ceremony, but the language used in the poem moves away from the original formula, turning it into a sort
of ‘heroic oath whose strength defies the strictures of iambic pentameter and of the end-stopped line’
(Roessner 1982, p.335). It goes on describing love by what it does not do, turning actions into abstractions:
love does not change in a changeable world, whose interpretation should be ‘the love of one lover does not
change with changes in the other lover’(Roessner 1982, p.336), and it does not move in response to the
departure of the lover, reinforcing the abovementioned idea. The second quatrain comes back to define
love through two seafaring metaphors, turning abstractions into concrete references: love is like a
permanent mark for ships, whose value resides in being “fixed”, whose reference is the constant lover who
keeps loving his unstable half; it is also a guiding star for seamen, who can look for it in absence of other
landmarks, whose allusion is once again the constant lover who keeps chasing the unalterable ideal of love.
In the third quatrain there is a continuation of the thematic sequence of the previous quatrains, but the
speaker opts for the insertion of a metaphor: it embodies the strength of love that goes beyond Time’s
“brief hours and weeks”, even when it takes beauty and youth away. It ends with a reference to Doomsday,
recalling the marriage services in the injunction to the couple. The caesura is preserved by the introduction
of the metaphor, making the structure fitting for its content: the speaker asserts love’s immortality denying
love’s mortality without completely denying it. The couplet is problematic, because it replaces the previous
description of love with a bombastic provocation, which addresses the topic but does not come back to it.
The first line recalls the language of a chivalric challenge as well as that of legal proceeding, as it is made
clear by the proximity of words such as writ and error, which compares together in the expression “writ of
error”. The second line absolutised the statement through an hyperbole. The conclusion recalls the opening
with its reference to the speaker, closing it with a circular movement. In the first and second quatrains of
sonnet 129, the speaker is trying to define Lust through its moral and physial effects: it is a ‘murderous’,
‘bloody’ action whose satisfaction is carnally longed, but mentally regretted. The first quatrain opens with
an allusion to sexual intercourse, considered as a squandering of vital energy that makes the individual
morally compromised, and reinforce the idea with the following expression “waste of shame”, whose
interpretation could be an action that was not worth the shame. The second quatrain focuses on the
contrast between lust before action, desire, and shame after action, the consummation of that desire and
the desolation it leaves behind. In the third quatrain there is a continuation of the thematic sequence of the
previous quatrains, but the caesura is bridged over by the repetition of “mad” at the end of line 8 and at
the beginning of line 9: lust makes the lover mad in ‘pursuit’ and in ‘possession’. The result is a structure
carefully constructed repeating the same pattern in the same order from line 1 to line 10 as to better
convey ‘the unvarying progress of lust from pursuit to consummation to aftermaths’ (Thomas Neely 1977,
p.91). The couplet seals the sonnet with a truism, a statement so obvious that it is not worth mentioning:
the world well knows the devastating effects of lust, whose temptation leads immediately to
disappointment, but it doesn’t know how to avoid it because the longed heaven is inseparable from the
feared hell.

Shakespeare’s Sonnets is a collection in which the involvement of the speaker is clear: he is immerged in
the world he is rhyming through his sonnets. Nevertheless, the flow of the entire sequence is seemingly
suspended by these three pivotal poems, that act as momentary stays: they provide no more than a
temporary detachment, generalizing and exacerbating some issues without providing a resolution. Sonnet
94 is the first sonnet that is not addressed to “you” but concerned with three different subjects, although it
feels like the speaker is addressing no one. In the first two quatrains, the subject is the impersonal and
almost immobile “they”, that gradually turns from firm and immune to corruption and catalyst to motion in
others into an animate subject. With the insertion of the flower image the detachment is reiterated: the
image pushes the subject of the sonnet closer to the beloved of the surrounding sonnets but preserves the
necessary distance to recognize the devastating intrusion of time and the inevitability of corruption. In the
couplet, the all-inclusive “things” finally completes the identification of the three different subjects of the
poem: the Lillies overlap themselves with the personal pronoun just as the image flower by their plurality,
whiteness and association with chastity. Regardless of the final identification, the tone remains impersonal
because the last line is proverbial as the first one: the attempt of the poet to describe a detached,
conventionally idealized beloved who remains free from the blots of its macro-sequence is failed, because
he eventually surrenders to the acknowledgement of inner corruption in the young man concealed by his
external beauty. At the beginning of sonnet 116 there is an implicit reference to “you” in the imperative
form that refers to the speaker with the objective pronoun “me”, but the subject and even the audience
remain undefined. Then Love becomes the new subject, that is defined initially by what it does not do and
subsequently by more realistic references, from the distant mark and star to the synechdochally lips and
cheeks. In the couplet, there is an explicit reference to the speaker, who is responsible of the definition and
can be in error, but the tone remains careful and controlled to retain its impersonality. Nonetheless, his
writing along with the love of individuals cannot convey the absolute constancy of love: the attempt to
define a hypothetical Love that transcends the ever-changing world is failed too. Sonnet 129 seems to be
addressed to no one. Lust is the subject, but it is observed in an unconventional way: it is depersonalized
and distanced to such a degree that the precipitous description can only convey immobility. Despite Lust is
presented as unstoppable, the progress of lust from pursuing to consummation and aftermath is
surprisingly static. In the couplet, the subject becomes a vague “world” that refers generically to all men,
whose acknowledgment of weakness does not affect their attitude: the attempt of the speaker to condemn
convincingly Lust is failed, because he attenuates the description more and more, until it blurs into paradox.

In conclusion, these sonnets are deliberately impersonal, general and immobile to problematize other
poets’ custom to transcend reality to grab on to perfected ideals of human reality to contrapose to
inconstancy. Shakespeare contraposes a collection of sonnets that remains strictly bound to earth, to the
reign of everything that grows.