HW 12/7: Sonnet Explication

Write a two-paragraph explication of your Shakespearean sonnet, demonstrating the differences between the ideas and techniques found in the octave and sestet.  Please give particular consideration to the final rhyming couplet in the sestet -- it is very likely adding something important to help bring the meaning of the poem into focus.

Here is an model for how to do this using an alternate poem:

          "Sonnet 129" by William Shakespeare

Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame 

Is lust in action; and till action, lust 

Is perjured, murd'rous, bloody, full of blame, 

Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust, 

5     Enjoyed no sooner but despisèd straight, 

Past reason hunted; and, no sooner had 

Past reason hated as a swallowed bait 

On purpose laid to make the taker mad; 

Mad in pursuit and in possession so, 

10    Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme; 

A bliss in proof and proved, a very woe; 

Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream. 

                  All this the world well knows; yet none knows well 

                  To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

Example explication:

In "Sonnet 129", William Shakespeare explores our complex relationship with lust.  Through a series of antithetical comparisons, his speaker considers the differences between lust in its theoretical sense – prior to taking any lustful “action” (line 2) – and lust once it has been acted upon.  Neither case is particularly positive: lust as an idea is equated to all manner of wrongs, including “perjur[y],” “murd[er],” and “savage[ry]” (lines 3-4).  Similarly, lust after it is set into motion is immediately “despised” and causes nothing but “woe” (lines 5-7).  Lust before and after is summarily written off as a mistake – if not an outright evil.

These contrasts in the octave continue in the sestet and give way – significantly – to an apparent contradiction in the final couplet: the paradox of a “heaven that leads [us] … to hell” (line 14).  In the sestet, the speaker notes that the lustful act itself seems like it will be “a joy” (line 10), but points out that any pleasure from the act is brief and doesn’t come to anything more than a “dream” (line 10) afterward.  It begins as a “bliss,” but quickly becomes a “woe” (line 11).  Ultimately, the speaker laments that even though we know better, “all the world” (line 13) seems unable to “shun” (line 14) the human compulsion for lust.  The good and the bad of lust are expressed in the final paradox: lust is a pleasure that drags down the human spirit.