18 pages • 36 minutes read
William ShakespeareSonnet 43
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1609A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Form and Meter
“Sonnet 43” is an English sonnet, which is a variant of the original form developed by the Italian poet, Francesco Petrarch. The rhyme scheme of Petrarch’s Italian sonnet is ABBA ABBA CDE CDE and is divided between the octave (the first eight lines), which presents the problem, and the sestet (the last 6 lines), which comments on the problem. The Englishman Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, developed the English variant that changed the layout to three quatrains, with a concluding couplet. The rhyme scheme of this English variant was ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. The situation is presented in the first 12 lines and the comment is usually present in the couple. According to the University of Oxford, “Shakespeare wrote so successfully in this particular format that it has taken his name, rather than Surrey’s, and became the ‘Shakespearean sonnet’” (“The Mystery of the ‘First’ English Sonnet.” The University of Oxford, 2021). “Sonnet 43” is an example of this form of the English sonnet. The meter, as in most of William Shakespeare’s sonnets, is iambic pentameter, or five successive iambs (an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable). This meter can be seen throughout, as in, “When most I wink, then do my eyes best see” (Line 1). Unlike the Italian sonnet, which usually focuses on the unattainable love or worship of a beautiful woman, Shakespeare used a man (The Fair Youth) as the subject of the speaker’s focus. Along with this subject, he also wrote of infidelity, lust, and ugliness—breaking away from the elevated Italian subjects before him.
Consonance to Heighten Theme
The use of consonance throughout the poem, specifically the hard “c” or “k” alongside the use of “s” or “sh,” serves to highlight the speaker’s insomnia and the nighttime setting. The speaker’s longing for their dreamworld is shown as they try to lull themselves to sleep by using “s” and “sh” words that are soft-sounding, harmonious, and generally positive. They believe that the beloved’s “shade shines so!” (Line 8) and that their “shade / Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!” (Lines 11-12). However, there is also a sharp, hard “c” or “k” sound in the poem that hints at minutes ticking away and the harsh feeling of breaking up that has occurred in the relationship. Things in the daylight are “unrespected” (Line 2) and the shade, even while beautiful, is “imperfect” (Line 11). Even words like “wink” (Line 1), “look” (Line 3), “looking” (Line 10), “dark” (Line 4) and “clear/er” (Line 7) hint at the hidden truth that the speaker is deluded, wasting their time pining after The Fair Youth.
Antanaclasis and Paradox
One of the immediately notable qualities of “Sonnet 43” is its reliance on word repetition. This technique helps to highlight the paradox of dark and light that occurs in the statements that “all days are nights” (Line 13) and “nights [become] bright days” (Line 14). A paradox is an absurd statement that when investigated turns out to be true. While days cannot be nights and nights cannot be days, the dreaming of the speaker is vividly portrayed to highlight that they feel they are more alive when they can be visited by the beloved, which occurs only in sleep. The paradoxical notation is enhanced by the use of antanaclasis, a technique in which the same word is used in the same line, but with different meaning. Antanaclasis is used predominantly in the middle of the poem with “Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright, / How would thy shadow’s form form happy show / To the clear day with thy much clearer light” (Lines 5-7). The word “shadow” means alternately the speaker’s ghost, the darkness of the room, and the speaker’s ghost in Lines 5 and 6. “[F]orm” (Line 6), means first the corporeality of the speaker and then shifts to a verb of to make. Finally, “clear” (Line 7) means first the quality of the day (cloudless) but is shortly followed by its adjective variant to describe the brightness of the speaker’s presence. These multiple meanings not only heighten the ideas of dark versus bright, day versus night, and dreams versus reality, but they also enhance the themes of emotional reversal.
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By William Shakespeare
