The Place 2 Be: Shakespeare's Sonnets

Critique of Sonnet 69

SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS

Theme: Debasing oneself.
Content: A criticism of the subject for again associating with lessers that results in observers speaking well of the subject's appearance but not of the company he keeps.

Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view
Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend.
All tongues, the voice of souls, give thee that due,
Utt'ring bare truth even so as foes commend.

The emphasis here is on the outward appearance of the subject and the image he projects of himself to others.

The subject is commended, echoing the prospect of also being condemned.

Heavy emphasis throughout the sonnet on visual objects such as eye and view.

Thy outward thus with outward praise is crowned,
But those same tongues that give thee so thine own
In other accents do this praise confound
By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.

The commending of the crowned subject has now turned to confounding due to people discussing the character of the subject, not just the visual appearance and beauty.

Visual emphasis continues with outward, seeing, eye and shown.

They look into the beauty of thy mind,
And that in guess they measure by thy deeds.
Then, churls, their thoughts although their eyes were kind
To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds.

Others now judge the subject by his deeds, not his appearance.

The mend of Q1 now morphs to mind in Q3 as if to advise the subject to mend his mind.

Visual emphasis continues with look and eyes.

But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,
The soil is this: that thou dost common grow.

The soil is the company that the subject keeps which degrades him.

The souls of Q1 now become the soil in the couplet.

The reason for the commending turning to confounding is now revealed as the subject making himself available to all sorts of people thereby making himself common.

The eyes prevalent in all the quatrains are now absent in the couplet as the subject is no longer judged just on what the eye can see.

The sense of seeing threading throughout the sonnet (as with show) is now replaced with the alternative sense of smelling the subject, which is odorous.