The Place 2 Be

Critique of Sonnet 103
SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS

Theme:      Loss of Muse
Content:    The author cannot add more to the subject's worth so advises the subject to simply look in their mirror for confirmation of their visual beauty in a disjointed sonnet reflecting the author's current loss of inventiveness, probably deliberately.


Alack, what poverty my muse brings forth
That, having such a scope to show her pride,
The argument all bare is of more worth
Than when it hath my added praise beside!


O blame me not if I no more can write!
Look in your glass and there appears a face
That overgoes my blunt invention quite,
Dulling my lines and doing me disgrace.


Were it not sinful then, striving to mend,
To mar the subject that before was well?
For to no other pass my verses tend
Than of your graces and your gifts to tell;


And more, much more, than in my verse can sit
Your own glass shows you when you look in it.


Home

Critical text © NigelDavies.home@Virgin.net


1