Theme: Self-love
Content: A further expression of the subject and author being one, to the point of the author projecting visual attributes of the subject onto himself.
Sin of self-love
possesseth all mine
eye,
And all my
soul, and all my
every part;
And for this sin
there is no remedy,
It is so grounded inward
in my
heart.
- The assonance of in runs through this sonnet with many words emphasising the sin that lies within the poet.
- This quatrain is preoccupied with the author's sin.
- The sin of self-love is here presented as being held within his heart.
- The whole sonnet screams me, mine, my, myself, self emphasising the author's cry for attention and desire to possess the subject.
Methinks
no face so gracious is
as mine,
No shape so true, no truth
of
such account,
And for myself mine
own worth do
define
As I all other in
all worths surmount.
- The sin of self-love is here presented as also being held within his mind, something he thinks, therefore mind over matter.
- The Platonic Triad of Beauty, Truth and Goodness (or "Fair, Kind & True") (also referenced in Sonnets 101 & 105) is again represented in 3 separate lines here in gracious, truth and worth culminating in the 4th. line as all worths.
But when my
glass shows me myself indeed,
Beated and chapped with tanned antiquity,
Mine own self-love
quite contrary I read;
Self so self-loving
were iniquity.
- The mighty But brings us back to reality.
- Paradoxically, the reflection of himself (as though the image of himself that others see) gives a different picture.
'Tis thee,
myself,
that for
myself
I praise,
Painting
my
age with beauty of thy days.
- Mine features in every quatrain but is absent from the couplet signifying that the real subject of the sonnet is really thee.
- This couplet re-affirms the sentiment expressed in previous sonnets of the subject and the author being one, to the point that the author is identifying the subject's visual characteristics in himself.
Critical text © NigelDavies.home@Virgin.net