The Place 2 Be: Shakespeare's Sonnets

Critique of Sonnet 22

SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS

Theme: Heart
Content: An exchange of hearts between the subject and author, bonding the two and making them dependent on each other's life.

My glass shall not persuade me I am old
So long as youth and thou are of one date;
But when in thee time's furrows I behold,
Then look I death my days should expiate.

"I will not regard myself as old until you visibly age."

Possible pun on the author's name via me I am: me = Will + I am = William.

thou can be found anagrammatically within youth making them one.

Shakespeare was 10 years older than his patron, Henry Wriothesley.

For all that beauty that doth cover thee
Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,
Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me;
How can I then be elder than thou art?

They have exchanged hearts therefore are equal in age to each other and equally dependent on each other's lives.

O therefore, love, be of thyself so wary
As I, not for myself, but for thee will,
Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary
As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.

"Please look after yourself just as I care for you."

Possible pun on the author's name in for thee will.

heart is repeated as the central theme of the sonnet.

Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain:
Thou gav'st me thine not to give back again.

"Don't rely on your own heart when I die as you gave me your heart to keep."

heart concludes the sonnet's theme.