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 ...

's Sonnet 135, the speaker appeals to his

mistress Mistress is the feminine form of the English word "master" (''master'' + ''-ess'') and may refer to: Romance and relationships * Mistress (lover), a term for a woman who is in a sexual and romantic relationship with a man who is married to a d ...

after having been rejected by her.

Synopsis

In the first

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 Gree ...

of the sonnet, the speaker pledges himself to the mistress, while he humbly refers to himself as "I that vex thee." It can be roughly paraphrased as: ''You have me, and me, and me again.'' The second quatrain can be paraphrased thus: ''Since your will is large and spacious, won't you let me hide my will in yours? Especially since you are graciously accepting others, but not myself?'' In the third quatrain, he likens the mistress to an ocean, which would be able to comfortably accommodate an additional quantity of water. Thus, he implicitly gives up the right to an exclusive relationship with the mistress. There is some debate over the meaning of the final

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 ...

; in her book ''The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets'',

Helen Vendler Helen Hennessy Vendler (born April 30, 1933) is an American literary critic and is Porter University Professor Emerita at Harvard University. Life and career Helen Hennessy Vendler was born on April 30, 1933, in Boston, Massachusetts, to George ...

supported the interpretation by G. B. Evans (''Shakespeare's Sonnets'', 1996) as "Let no unkind ersonskill no fair beseechers."

Structure

Sonnet 135 is an English or Shakespearean

sonnet A sonnet is a poetic form that originated in the poetry composed at the Court of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in the Sicilian city of Palermo. The 13th-century poet and notary Giacomo da Lentini is credited with the sonnet's inventio ...

. The English sonnet has three

s, followed by a final rhyming

. Nominally, 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 r ...

of the form ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, although (unusually) rhymes ''a'', ''e'', and ''g'' feature the same sound. It is composed 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". "Iam ...

, 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 pre ...

based on five pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions. The 2nd line exemplifies a regular iambic pentameter:

×     /     ×  /    ×     /    ×  / ×   /
And "Will" to boot, and "Will" in overplus;

 /     ×  × /    ×  /   ×   /    ×    /
More than enough am I that vex thee still, (135.2-3)

:/ = ''ictus'', a metrically strong syllabic position. × = ''nonictus''. The 3rd line ( scanned above) features a common metrical variation, an initial reversal; similarly, line 4 has a mid-line reversal. Potentially, line 10 contains an initial reversal, and line 1 a mid-line reversal. Line 8 potentially features a rightward movement of the first ictus (resulting in a four-position figure, × × / /, sometimes referred to as a ''minor ionic''):

×   ×   /  /    ×  /   ×  /  ×      /
And in my will no fair acceptance shine? (135.8)

Lines 4 and 11 also potentially contain minor ionics. The meter demands a few variant pronunciations: line 5's "spacious" and line 7's "gracious" must each fill out three syllables, while line 11's "being" functions as one.

Analysis

"Will"

Counting the contraction ''wilt'' as instance of the word ''will'', this sonnet uses the word ''will'' a total of fourteen times. Stephen Booth notes "Sonnets 135 and 136 are festivals of verbal ingenuity in which much of the fun derives from the grotesque lengths the speaker goes to for a maximum number and concentration of puns on ''will''." He notes the following meanings used in these two sonnets: *(a) what one wishes to have or do *(b) the auxiliary verb indicating futurity and/or purpose *(c) lust, carnal desire *(d) the male sex organ *(e) the female sex organ *(f) an abbreviation of "William" (Shakespeare's first name, conceivably also the name of the Dark Lady's husband) In the 1609 Quarto edition of ''Sonnets'' several instances of the word ''Will'' capitalized and italicized.

Notes

References

External links

Paraphrase and analysis
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sonnet 135 British poems Sonnets by William Shakespeare