Because I am a massive lit geek, because I recently had to read Shakespeare's sonnets for a class, and because I love sharing good poetry, I give you my absolute favorite sonnets and some thoughts on each:


29.
When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.


A guy in my class said that he's solidly straight, but if Shakespeare wrote that final couplet for him (and Shakespeare did, in fact, write his first 126 sonnets to a man, although it's unclear whether the relationship was actually nonplatonic) he'd "seriously consider switching teams." LOL. Personally, I think that this sonnet is intensely romantic. If someone recited this to me, I don't doubt I'd marry him/her on the spot. ;) I also really like the language. The first quatrain, for instance, feels at once very grand and very personal. (If that makes sense.) And, as with most of the sonnets that I most enjoy, I think that this one clearly and concisely captures a very human emotion that is also very elusive to writers -- the idea that just thinking about the beloved can lift your spirits out of deep depression into an elation and intense feeling of specialness.




35.
No more be grieved at that which thou hast done:
Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud;
Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,
And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.
All men make faults, and even I in this,
Authorizing thy trespass with compare,
Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,
Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are;
For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense --
Thy adverse party is thy advocate --
And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence;
Such civil war is in my love and hate
That I an accessary needs must be
To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.


Another one that I like because of the emotion; it very touchingly portrays someone so deeply in love that though his beloved has betrayed him, he can't help but love him anyway. I also like the wordplay here -- "to thy sensual fault I bring in sense" and "that sweet thief which sourly robs from me," for instance. Finally, I find the imagery in lines two and three to be quite compelling, emphasizing what Shakespeare thinks both of the nature of the man and of the nature of his "trespass."




65.
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'ersways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out
Against the wrackful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong but time decays?
O fearful meditation: where, alack,
Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back,
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
O, none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.


What I like best about this one is the feeling of time's inevitable, unopposable movement; of our inability to resist aging and death save through what things we can create in hopes that those things will endure beyond our deaths.




73.
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self that seals up all in rest.
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the deathbed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.


This one is famous, and I love it. Again, the idea of time intrigues me in this one; I'm also currently interested in how colors (explicitly and implicitly) play out in this sonnet.
The language here is gorgeous. I especially like line 2 (because of the reversal -- you'd expect "When yellow leaves, or few, or none" there) and the sunset/twilight imagery.




74.
But be contented when that fell arrest
Without all bail shall carry me away,
My life hath in this line some interest
Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.
When thou reviewest this, thou dost review
The very part was consecrate to thee:
The earth can have but earth, which is his due;
My spirit is thine, the better part of me.
So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,
The prey of worms, my body being dead,
The coward conquest of a wretch's knife,
Too base of thee to be rememberèd.
The worth of that is that which it contains,
And that is this, and this with thee remains.


I just think that this one is really romantic -- lines 5-8 ("When thou reviewest this... the better part of me") especially.




116.
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments; love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O, no, it is an ever-fixèd mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error, and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.


Another famous one, and another one that I like because he's gotten at what feels like a pointed emotional truth, and done so succintly and with beautiful language.





130.
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak; yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.


I love this for two reasons: first, because it turns conventional love poetry on its head (but just as a side note, "reeks" did not have the pejorative connotation that it has today at the time at which Shakespeare was writing) -- in its way, it's quite funny; I sometimes have to suppress a giggle when I read it these days. Second, I like the idea behind it -- that you see that your beloved is not perfect but love him/her desperately anyway. (If you haven't guessed by now, yes, I'm a hopeless romantic. ;) )





138.
When my love swears that she is made of truth
I do believe her, though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutored youth,
Unlearnèd in the world's false subtilties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue;
On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed.
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O, love's best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love loves not to have years told.
Therefore I lie with her and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flattered be.


Another one that I love because it really captures a very human emotion and experience concisely and accurately. Who hasn't known of or experienced a relationship in which both people know that there are some truths that they both refuse to acknowledge? I also enjoy the pun in the next to last line -- for some reason it strikes me as very poignant.




Okay. I'm done now. ;)


~Chrysan"lit geek"themum~