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William Shakespeare (1564-1616) and his 154 Sonnets Sonnets Themes: Shakespeare’s sonnets can be broken down into three subcategories according to themes. Sonnets 1-17 have a common theme of marriage and procreation. Shakespeare writes these sonnets in an attempt to persuade his audience, a young man, to get married and procreate. Sonnets 1-126 are all addressed to a young man. Both the procreating sonnets and young man sonnets stress the theme of everlasting love despite the eventual fading of beauty. Sonnets 127-154 share the theme of a dark lady. The dark lady sonnets tell of a grim woman who, although she physically described otherwise, is a beautiful lover. When my love swears that she is made of truth is Shakespeare’s sonnet 138 HISTORY :"Sonnet 138" was written by the English poet and playwright William Shakespeare. The poem was probably written in the early 1590s—though it wasn't published until 1599, when it appeared in a pirated edition of Shakespearean poems, The Passionate Pilgrim. (It was later published in the 1609 edition of Shakespeare's Sonnets.) The poem dives into a difficult, complicated relationship between the persona and a dark lady who is not beautiful. Both the speaker and the woman he loves lie to each other constantly—about small things, like the speaker's age, and bigger things, like whether his mistress is cheating on him. The two lovers end up in a paradoxical situation: they take comfort—at least, they try to take comfort—in each other's lies, instead of the love they feel for each other. Addressed to: The Dark Lady • SONNET 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, • Unlearned in the world’s false subtleties. • 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 suppress. • But wherefore says she not she is unjust? • And wherefore say not I that I am old? • Oh, 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. • End-Stopped lines: An end stopped line is a line in verse which ends with punctuation, either to show the completion of a phrase or sentence. All the lines in this poem are end-stopped lines. • Run-on-lines (enjambment): It is a running on of a thought from one line to another without final punctuation. • Caesura: (a pause within a line) A stop or pause in a metrical line, often marked by punctuation or by a grammatical boundary, such as a phrase or clause. Line 2 • When the woman I love swears that she is honest, I believe her, even though I know she's lying to me. • I do this so that she will think that I am a naïve young person, unexperienced in the ways of the world. • In this way, I pretend that she thinks I’m young—even though she knows I’m getting on in years(that I am old). • And I pretend to believe her lies. • In this way, neither side is truthful. • But why doesn’t she admit that she lies? • And why don’t I admit that I’m old? • Because the best thing about love is pretending to trust one another • —and because old people don’t like to have their age revealed to their lovers. • Therefore I lie to her and she lies to me; • as a result, despite our faults, these lies make us feel better. • THEME : Willing self-deception • FORM :Sonnet • STRUCTURE : 3 quatrains 1 couplet 14 lines of iambic pentameter • Rhyme Scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG 3 Quatrains and 1 Couplet • Paradox:—“I do believe her, though I know she lies.” • Rhetorical questions: In a series of rhetorical questions (A rhetorical question is a question someone asks without expecting an answer). • The speaker briefly entertains the possibility that they might give up all these lies and simply be honest with each other. But he quickly dismisses the possibility. He offers two reasons. One of these reasons comes, simply, from vanity: he doesn’t want the truth about his age to get out. (Indeed, it seems like he doesn’t want to admit it even it to himself!) The second reason is more subtle, and more devastating. The “best habit” of love, he argues, is “seeming trust.” In other words, the best thing about love is when lovers seem to trust each other. • Metaphors: 1. she is made of truth 2. the world's false subtleties • Personifications: "love swears"--personification because love cannot swear • "She is made of truth"--personification because the woman can not physically be made up of truth • "Speaking tongue"--Personification because tongues do not actually speak } • "Loves best habit"--Personification because love can not have physically have a habit • "Love loves not to have years told"-- Personification because Love is a feeling and a feeling cannot love. • The Pun, also called paronomasia, is a form of word play usually intended for humour. • 1. Homophone (same sound) or homophonic pun : Two different meanings are suggested by two similar sounding words. A word which is pronounced the same as another but has a different spelling and meaning. Homophonic pun: This type of pun uses homonyms (words that sound the same) with different meanings. For example: “The wedding was so emotional that even the cake was in tiers.” tiers: tears/row • Example: made/ maid would/wood write/right days/daze prophet/profit “atheism is a non- prophet institution “ • Hamlet: Not so, my lord. I am too much i’ the sun.(The sun here is an example of homophonic pun. Its pun is sun and son.) • 2.Homographic pun: This type of pun uses words that are spelled the same but sound different. These puns are often written rather than spoken, as they briefly trick the reader into reading the “wrong” sound. • For example, “You can tune a guitar, but you can’t tuna fish. Unless you play bass.” In this case, “tuna fish” is a homophonic pun with “tune a.” The word “bass,” though, functions as a homographic pun in that the word “bass” pronounced with a long “a” refers to a type of instrument while “bass” pronounced with a short “a” is a type of fish. • 3. Homonym( same name): In this type of pun, the wordplay involves a word that is spelled and sounds the same, yet has different meanings. For example, “Two silk worms had a race and ended in a tie.” A “tie” can of course either be when neither party wins, but in this pun also refers to the piece of clothing usually made from silk. Homonymic pun: A homonymic pun contains aspects of both the homophonic pun and the homographic pun. In this type of pun, the wordplay involves a word that is spelled and sounds the same, yet has different meanings. • Grave serious/ tomb Mercutio“ask for me tomorrow, you shall find me a grave man.” This is a kind of pun where grave means serious and it also means Mercutio’s death. • Pun –Shakespeare uses the tool of pun throughout the Sonnet 138. • 1. homophone: “made of truth” mademaid • 2. Homonym: “lie” deceive/ sleep • to demonstrate the idea of duplicity, and if one carefully analyses these puns then the truth that hides behind the mask will be understood. Shakespeare uses the word “lie” as a pun to try to subtlety show the reader what really is going on between him and the Black Lady and to emphasize how comfortable they are with each other’s constant lies. “Lie”, can mean to deceive or to lie down, which in this case means to lay down which most likely refers to sex. Therefore by using this pun the reader knows that the persona believes that she slept with other man but pretends that she does not. He pretends to believe her because it makes him seem naïve—and thus younger than he actually he is. He wants to seem like “some untutored youth.” The mistress knows full well that the speaker’s “days are past the best”—that he is, in other words, getting old. So, both the mistress and the speaker are lying to each other—and indeed, one lie leads to another: the mistress lies about her cheating and he lies about his age, and so on. As the speaker notes, summarizing the situation, “On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed.”.

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