The Place 2 Be: Shakespeare's Sonnets

Critique of Sonnet 56

SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS

Theme: Temporary Sadness
Content: Love experiences a temporary lack of appetite which puts distance between the 2 characters but the sonnets gives promise of its return.

Sweet love, renew thy force. Be it not said
Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,
Which but today by feeding is allayed,
Tomorrow sharpened in his former might.

The essence of being runs throughout the sonnet.

The preoccupation with current time is represented by today, tomorrow and daily in the quatrains.

So, love, be thou; although today thou fill
Thy hungry eyes even till they wink with fullness,
Tomorrow see again, and do not kill
The spirit of love with a perpetual dullness.

Let this sad int'rim like the ocean be
Which parts the shore where two contracted new
Come daily to the banks, that when they see
Return of love, more blessed may be the view;

The said of Q1 morphs into sadness in Q3.

The distance between the lovers appears more physical and permanent in this metaphor, prompting a change in metaphor back to time in the couplet.

Possible pun on sea/see (ocean) in view and the previous quatrain's hungry eyes.

Or call it winter, which, being full of care,
Makes summer's welcome, thrice more wished, more rare.

The time concept, and distance metaphor, now extends to seasons.