Explication of Sonnet 144

Explication of a Sonnet

Sonnet 144

In explication of sonnet 144 I would like to take a drastic change from what seems to be the common view of many in regards to who it is written about and the story behind it. I would like to state first of all that the straight facts about the sonnets are so few and that theories and debates are many. Doubt is cast over nearly every aspect of these sonnets. Arguments from when they were written, whom they were written to, why they were written, and even in many cases the question of who wrote them. The common thought of whom they were written to and why they were written has evolved as of late to reach a view of Shakespeare's sexual love affair with a young man and a mysterious mistress. While the contrast of the two persons is nothing new, the idea of the sexual love affair between Shakespeare and the young man rather than a love associated with mere friendship, has evolved to become the mainstream ideal. Sonnet 144 is often held as the most evidentiary sonnet for upholding the view of this love-triangle. I would like to offer what has been my interpretation of this sonnet based on my life's lens, as we should all have when reading poetry, and based on the historical known evidence of Shakespeare's life.

As a young boy Shakespeare most likely would have attended the Stratford Grammar School, which was established by the church in the thirteenth century (Greenblatt 43). The School was, in Shakespeare's day, under the care of the governing body of Stratford-upon Avon and it was likely that because of Shakespeare's father's elected position he would have been educated there. During Shakespeare's years at the school he would have been taught by possibly three headmasters who durin...

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... nature and that he could possible lose the fight to hold on to what it right and fair as he gives in to the bad angel as it "fires out my good one"(line 14).

While this is only one sonnet and others may still reveal the possibility of a sexual love triangle between Shakespeare, the young man, and the "Dark Lady", I believe most are not gender specific and those that are, like sonnet 95, suggest a mere mentors warning out of care for a young friend.

Works Cited

Greenblatt, Stephen. The Norton Shakespeare: Based on the Oxford Edition. New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1997.

Holy Bible: King James Version. Wheaton: Tyndale, 1996.

Mabillard, Amanda. "Shakespeare of Stratford." Shakespeare Online. 2000. http://www.shakespeare-online.com