The Place 2 Be: Shakespeare's Sonnets

Critique of Sonnet 112

SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS

Theme: So what
Content: A follow-on from Sonnet 111 preoccupied with the author and his dismissive regard for his current shame.

Your love and pity doth th' impression fill
Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow;
For what care I who calls me well or ill,
So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow?

Cute pun on impression as in the impression that others have of the author and a physical impression that can be literally filled (such as the frowns on the author's brow). It's possible that other meanings of impression (such as in printing) are intended aswell.

Obvious pun on the author's name in calls me well or ill, especially as well and ill are both stressed syllables.

A sonnet preoccupied with the author with 16 occurrences of me, my and I, plus the name-punning.

The contrast between the impression of the author and what he is, is reflected in the contrasting love...pity, well...ill, bad...good pairings.

You are my all the world, and I must strive
To know my shames and praises from your tongue
None else to me, nor I to none alive,
That my steeled sense or changes, right or wrong.

The contrasting continues with All...None, shames...praises, right...wrong

In so profound abyss I throw all care
Of others' voices that my adder's sense
To critic and to flatterer stopped are.
Mark how with my neglect I do dispense:

Having opened Q1 & Q2 with You and Your, this quatrain breaks the pattern by having no reference to the subject before the Couplet resumes it with You.

If Shakespeare uses a word twice he tends not to use the same meaning twice, as here: sense in line 8 means "nature" or "attitude" whilst sense in line 10 means "the sense of hearing".

It is unclear whether the author is using the adder allusion just to represent his own deafness to the critics and flatterers (an adder's apparent lack of ears and defensive behaviour that can be misconstrued to mean it is deaf), or whether he is portraying himself generally as a snake, perceived or actual. This phrase appears to be inspired by Psalms 58:4: "they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear; Which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely" though this Biblical passage is disturbingly describing the wicked.

The contrasting continues with critic...flatterer, voices...[deafness of an] adder.

You are so strongly in my purpose bred
That all the world besides, methinks, they're dead.

The contrasting concludes with bred...dead (also used in 104 & 108) and all the world with line 5's my All the world.