Sonnet 20 is one of the best-known of
154 sonnets written by the English
playwright
A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays.
Etymology
The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...
and
poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
. Part of the Fair Youth sequence (which comprises sonnets
1-
126), the subject of the sonnet is widely interpreted as being male, thereby raising questions about the
sexuality of its author. In this sonnet (as in, for example,
Sonnet 53
Shakespeare's Sonnet 53, presumably addressed to the same young man as the other sonnets in the first part of the sequence, raises some of the most common themes of the sonnet: the sublime beauty of the beloved, the weight of tradition, and the ...
) the beloved's beauty is compared to both a man's and a woman's.
Structure
Sonnet 20 is a typical English or Shakespearean sonnet, containing three
quatrain
A quatrain is a type of stanza, or a complete poem, consisting of four lines.
Existing in a variety of forms, the quatrain appears in poems from the poetic traditions of various ancient civilizations including Persia, Ancient India, Ancient Greec ...
s and a
couplet
A couplet is a pair of successive lines of metre in poetry. A couplet usually consists of two successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (or closed) couplet, each of the ...
for a total of fourteen lines. It follows the
rhyme scheme
A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhymes at the end of each line of a poem or song. It is usually referred to by using letters to indicate which lines rhyme; lines designated with the same letter all rhyme with each other.
An example of the ABAB rh ...
of this type of sonnet, ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. It employs
iambic pentameter
Iambic pentameter () is a type of metric line used in traditional English poetry and verse drama. The term describes the rhythm, or meter, established by the words in that line; rhythm is measured in small groups of syllables called "feet". "Iambi ...
, a type of poetic
metre
The metre (British spelling) or meter (American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its pref ...
based on five pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions. "Only this sonnet about gender has feminine rhymes throughout."
The first line exemplifies regular iambic pentameter with a final extrametrical syllable or ''feminine ending'':
× / × / × / × / × / (×)
A woman's face with nature's own hand painted, (20.1)
:/ = ''ictus'', a metrically strong syllabic position. × = ''nonictus''. (×) = extrametrical syllable.
Context
Sonnet 20 is most often considered to be a member of the "Fair Youth" group of sonnets, in which most scholars agree that the poet addresses a young man. This interpretation contributes to a common assumption of the homosexuality of Shakespeare, or at least the speaker of his sonnet. The position of Sonnet 20 also influences its analysis and examinations. William Nelles, of the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, claims that,
Sonnet 20 splits readers into two groups: those who see an end to any clear sequence after this point, and those who read on, finding a narrative line connecting the rest of the sonnets in a meaningful pattern.[William Nelles, "Sexing Shakespeare's Sonnets: Reading Beyond Sonnet 20," ''English Literary Renaissance'' Volume 39, Issue 1, February 2009: 128-140]
Abstract
/ref>
Scholars have suggested countless motivations or means of organizing Shakespeare's sonnets in a specific sequence or system of grouping. Some see the division between the sonnets written to the "young man", while others do not. A number of academics believe the sonnets may be woven into some form of complex narrative, while Paul Edmondson and Stanley Wells confidently assert that the sonnets are "better thought of as a collection than a sequence, since…the individual poems do not hang together from beginning to end as a single unity…Though some of the first 126 poems in the collection unquestionably relate to a young man, others could relate to either a male or female."
Sexuality
The modern reader may read sonnet 20 and question whether or not Shakespeare's sexuality is reflected in this sonnet. When looking at the sexual connotations in this sonnet it is important to reflect on what homoerotism meant during the time that Shakespeare was writing. Casey Charles discusses the idea that there was no official identity for a gay person at this time. There were words that identified what we would consider to be homosexual behaviour, but the idea of a "gay culture" or "gay identity" did not exist.
[Charles, Casey. "Was Shakespeare gay? Sonnet 20 and the politics of pedagogy." ''College Literature'' 25.3 (1998): 35-52. EBSCOhost. Web. 10 Nov. 2009.] Charles goes on to say that early modern laws against
sodomy
Sodomy () or buggery (British English) is generally anal or oral sex between people, or sexual activity between a person and a non-human animal ( bestiality), but it may also mean any non- procreative sexual activity. Originally, the term ''sodo ...
had very few transgressors, which means that either people did not engage in homosexual behavior or these acts were more socially acceptable than the modern reader would think. Shakespeare's awareness of the possible homoeroticism in Sonnet 20 does not necessarily illuminate whether or not he himself was actually practicing homosexual behavior.
One of the most famous accounts to raise the issue of homoeroticism in this sonnet is
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...
's short story "
The Portrait of Mr. W.H.", in which Wilde, or rather the story's narrator, describes the puns on "will" and "hues" throughout the sonnets, and particularly in the line in Sonnet 20, "A man in hue all hues in his controlling," as referring to a seductive young actor named
Willie Hughes
William Hughes is one potential candidate for the person on whom the "Fair Youth" of Shakespeare's Sonnets, Shakespeare's ''Sonnets'' is based (if the sonnets are autobiographical). The "Fair Youth" is a handsome, effeminate young man to whom the ...
who played female roles in Shakespeare's plays. However, there is no evidence for the existence of any such person.
Analysis
While there is much evidence that suggests the narrator's homosexuality, there are also countless academics who have argued against the theory. Both approaches can be used to analyze the sonnet.
Philip C. Kolin of the University of Southern Mississippi interprets several lines from the first two quatrains of Sonnet 20 as written by a homosexual figure. One of the most common interpretations of line 2 is that the speaker believes, "the young man has the beauty of a woman and the form of a man...Shakespeare bestows upon the young man feminine virtues divorced from all their reputedly shrewish infidelity."
[ In other words, the young man possesses all the positive qualities of a woman, without all of her negative qualities. The narrator seems to believe that the young man is as beautiful as any woman, but is also more faithful and less fickle. Kolin also argues that, "numerous, though overlooked, sexual puns run throughout this indelicate panegyric to Shakespeare's youthful friend."][ He suggests the reference to the youth's eyes, which gild the objects upon which they gaze, may also be a pun on "]gelding
A gelding is a castrated male horse or other equine, such as a pony, donkey or a mule. Castration, as well as the elimination of hormonally driven behavior associated with a stallion, allows a male equine to be calmer and better-behaved, makin ...
…The feminine beauty of this masculine paragon not only enhances those in his sight but, with the sexual meaning before us, gelds those male admirers who temporarily fall under the sway of the feminine grace and pulchritude housed in his manly frame."[
Amy Stackhouse suggests an interesting interpretation of the form of sonnet 20. Stackhouse explains that the form of the sonnet (written in ]iambic pentameter
Iambic pentameter () is a type of metric line used in traditional English poetry and verse drama. The term describes the rhythm, or meter, established by the words in that line; rhythm is measured in small groups of syllables called "feet". "Iambi ...
with an extra-unstressed syllable on each line) lends itself to the idea of a "gender-bending" model. The unstressed syllable is a feminine rhyme
Masculine ending and feminine ending are terms used in prosody, the study of verse form. "Masculine ending" refers to a line ending in a stressed syllable. "Feminine ending" is its opposite, describing a line ending in a stressless syllable. Th ...
, yet the addition of the syllable to the traditional form may also represent a phallus
A phallus is a penis (especially when erect), an object that resembles a penis, or a mimetic image of an erect penis. In art history a figure with an erect penis is described as ithyphallic.
Any object that symbolically—or, more precisel ...
.[Stackhouse, Amy D. "Shakespeare's Half-Foot: Gendered Prosody in Sonnet 20." ''Explicitor'' 65 (2006): 202-04. Print.] Sonnet 20 is one of only two in the sequence with feminine endings to its lines; the other is Sonnet 87
Sonnet 87 is one of 154 sonnets published by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare in 1609. It is part of the Fair Youth sequence, and sometimes included as the last sonnet in the Rival Poet group.
Synopsis
The poet admits that h ...
. Stackhouse emphasizes the ambiguity of the addressee's gender throughout the sonnet, which is resolved only in the final three lines. She writes that many parts of the sonnet—for example the term "master mistress"—maintain uncertainty around the gender of the sonnet's subject.
This idea of nature is also reflected in Philip C. Kolin's analysis of the last part of the poem as well. Kolin's observation of Shakespeare's discussion of the man being for "women's pleasure" does not lend itself to this idea of bisexuality or gender-bending at all. Kolin is saying that nature made him for "women's pleasure" and that is what is "natural".[Kolin, Philip C. "Shakespeare's Sonnet 20." ''Explicitor'' 45.1 (1986): 10-12. Print.] Kolin goes on to say that the phrase "to my purpose nothing" also reflects this natural aspect of being created for women's pleasure. In this, however, he takes no account of Shakespeare's common pun of "nothing" ("O") to mean vagina. Whereas Stackhouse would argue the poem is almost gender neutral, Kolin would argue that the poem is "playful" and "sexually (dualistic)".[
]
In other media
On his eighth studio album, Rufus Wainwright
Rufus McGarrigle Wainwright (born July 22, 1973) is a Canadian-American singer, songwriter, and composer. He has recorded 10 studio albums and numerous tracks on compilations and film soundtracks. He has also written two classical operas and set ...
set Sonnet 20 to music on '' Take All My Loves: 9 Shakespeare Sonnets''. And originally on his album "All days are Nights: Songs for Lulu." Where he also sets Sonnets 10 and 43.
Notes
References
*Baldwin, T. W. (1950). ''On the Literary Genetics of Shakspeare's Sonnets''. University of Illinois Press, Urbana.
*Hubler, Edwin (1952). ''The Sense of Shakespeare's Sonnets''. Princeton University Press, Princeton.
*Schoenfeldt, Michael (2007). ''The Sonnets: The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare's Poetry''. Patrick Cheney, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
External links
Paraphrase and analysis (Shakespeare-online)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sonnet 020
British poems
Sonnets by William Shakespeare
LGBT poetry