The Place 2 Be: Shakespeare's Sonnets

Critique of Sonnet 75

SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS

Theme: The Deadly Sins
Content: An outstanding play on the analogy of his lover being the food of his life with reference to the Deadly Sins. The intense passion he has for his lover in this sonnet is palpable.

So are you to my thoughts as food to life,

"Food for thought."

Or as sweet-seasoned showers are to the ground;

Beautiful alliteration.

And for the peace of you I hold such strife
As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found:

Beautiful contrast between his lover’s peaceful disposition and his own self-generated turmoil.

The 1st. of the Seven Deadly Sins represented in miser / wealth: Avarice.

Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon
Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure;

Happy in the indulgence of his love and him not losing her to someone/thing else.

The 2nd. of the Deadly Sins: Pride.

And the 3rd. represented in filching age will steal his treasure: Envy.

Now counting best to be with you alone,
Then bettered that the world may see my pleasure;

Expressing his pleasure of being alone with his lover and the further pride he enjoys in the public knowing it.

Excellent coupling of the concept in the first quatrain of a miser counting his riches but having his wealth known, with the similar possessiveness and ostentation he has towards his lover.

Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,
And by and by clean starved for a look;

Beautiful analogy of alternately feasting and hungering for his lover’s beauty.

Possessing or pursuing no delight
Save what is had or must from you be took.

"I want no more than the 'beauty' that you have."

4th. Sin represented in must from you be took: Lust.

Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,
Or gluttoning on all, or all away.

Beautifully summarises the contrasting extremes of the sonnet and his fasting and feasting on his love.

5th. Sin: Gluttony.

The final 2 Deadly Sins of Sloth and Wrath are conspicuously, and rightfully, absent from this sonnet, as they have no place amongst its pursuing dynamism and contrasting emotions of peace and pleasure.