The Place 2 Be: Shakespeare's Sonnets

Critique of Sonnet 105

SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS

Theme: Love's Constancy
Content: A pledge of loyalty and constancy to the subject with the author basing that commitment on three personal qualities (that permeate almost all of his sonnets) that here come together as one in accordance with Plotinus's doctrine.

Let not my love be called idolatry,
Nor my beloved as an idol show,
Since all alike my songs and praises be
To one, of one, still such, and ever so.

This sonnet is another structured around numbers: Q1's last line starts with 2 (To); Q2's last line starts with 1 (One); Q3's last line starts with 3 (Three); the whole sonnet ends on 1 (one). Another example of 2 adjacent sonnets (104 & 105) being about very different things but being linked by the same technique.

one (representing the unification of the author and subject and the unification of the 3 key attributes (Fair, kind and true)) occurs not once but 5 times in the sonnet and is also embedded in songs, constant, wondrous, constancy, confined, invention, wondrous, alone.

These references are consistent with Plotinus's doctrine of the One: the source from which he reasoned all goodness, truth, and beauty flows. (see

To (echoing the number 2, representing the author and subject) occurs not twice but 3 times in the sonnet and is embedded in today and tomorrow.

To one, as well as continuing the number punning from 104, reduces the two characters (author and subject) to one unit, as per Plotinus's doctrine (see discussion).

Although the beloved is indirectly mentioned once, the sonnet is fully centred on the author and his qualities as evidenced by 7 uses of my.

The sonnet is full of words with adjacent duplicate letters that may be indicative of the subject and author's closeness and unity: Idoll (Quarto spelling), still, tomorrow, Still, excellence, expressing, difference, varrying (Quarto spelling), Three, affords, three.

Kind is my love today, tomorrow kind,
Still constant in a wondrous excellence.
Therefore my verse, to constancy confined,
One thing expressing, leaves out difference.

Kind occurs 5 times in the sonnet.

4 occurs not four times but twice, embedded in Therefore and affords thereby completing a sequence of explicit and punning number references: 1, 2, 3, 4.

Ambiguity in my love here enabling the qualities the author speaks of to be interpreted as either of the author or of the subject, or both.

"Fair, kind, and true" is all my argument,
"Fair, kind, and true" varying to other words,
And in this change is my invention spent,
Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.

Three (representing the 3 principal themes (Fair, Kind and True)) occurs not thrice but 2 times in the sonnet.

Fair occurs 3 times in the sonnet.

True occurs 3 times in the sonnet.

Fair, Kind and True (a variant of Plotinus's triad: Beauty, Goodness and Truth) is the fulcrum of Shakespeare's sonnets. 50% contain the words fair, fairness, fairer, kind, kindness, true, truly or truest, etc. If we allow for synonyms (as instructed by Shakespeare in varying to other words) like "sweet", "good" and "honest", then the overwhelming majority of the sonnets contain reference to these qualities.

After the preoccupation with 1 and 2 in the first two quatrains, this quatrain combines them thereby emphasising 3.

Fair, kind, and true have often lived alone,
Which three till now never kept seat in one.

Perfect summary of the whole sonnet with the three qualities being combined into 1. Plotinus's doctrine has been achieved.