The Place 2 Be: Shakespeare's Sonnets

Critique of Sonnet 34

SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS

Theme: Clouded Love.
Content: Continuation of Sonnet 33's metaphor of the subject being a sun clouded by baser individuals. This time directly addressing complaint to the subject and ending with repentance by them.

Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day
And make me travel forth without my cloak,
To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,
Hiding thy brav'ry in their rotten smoke?

The author is clearly bitter about those who are surrounding the subject and keeping them away from him.

The accusatory tone of this sonnet is emphasised by the repeated explicit and embedded uses of the word thou.

The cloak provides protection from the alliterative base clouds.

'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break
To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,
For no man well of such a salve can speak
That heals the wound and cures not the disgrace.

The author has had a hard time, as evidenced by his storm-beaten face, and finds the occasional contact with the subject inadequate.

thou is echoed again in through.

The author's injury is more emotional than physical though, in that he suffers disgrace by being neglected by the subject.

Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;
Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss.
Th' offender's sorrow lends but weak relief
To him that bears the strong offence's cross.

Shame is now assigned to the subject as well as the author, which the subject apparently repents.

Alliteration of thou in Though and Th' offender.

These are hard criticisms indeed, classifying the subject's neglect as a strong offence causing grief that compares with Christ's bearing of the cross.

Ah, but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,
And they are rich, and ransom all ill deeds.

thou is echoed finally in those.

The subject is apparently so moved by the altercation that they are moved to tears.

Relief at last for the author in seeing physical manifestation of emotion and regret in the subject despite the earlier shame. The author is literally holding the subject to ransom.

The tears morph into pearl.

The rain on the author's storm-beaten face morphs to real tears on the subject's face: the author suffers from the action of the clouds; the subject suffers from the emotion of the pain he has caused the author.