“COOL: SAN FRANCISCO & SHAKESPEARE”

I remember this sonnet above all others. It was high school and I had to take a placement test for AP English (sophomore year). This was the poem we had to analyze.

It wasn’t until after we got the results back that the poem became clearer: Love can make everything seem better. Envy goes out the door and in its place, contentment: at the memory of a one true love.

Let’s take a closer look at this sonnet, line for line now. This is something I’d like to do with all of Shakespeare’s sonnets, beginning with Sonnet 29: “When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes” — how sad it starts. Analysis will follow the poem, after the jump. (I did get into the class by the way, *g*.)

When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur’d like him, like him with friends possess’d,
Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least:
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee,–and then my state
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings’.

Line-by-line analysis:

When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
Here, the argument is being introduced. The idea of both Fortune and mankind providing the Speaker no sympathy.

I all alone beweep my outcast state,
He alone cries over his present state: outcast.

And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries,
Even Heaven refuses it seems to listen to him, denying him an escape. Also, the idea of him having “bootless cries,” again re-emphasizes his present state: having nothing. A person is buried in their finest clothes, yet the Speaker says his finest, would be without even a pair of boots. (Or, perhaps, they were taken from him. Either way, he is without them and it’s just another reason for him to be down on his luck.)

And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
He then takes a look at himself and curses his fate: “why me?”

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
He thinks of how much easier it could be: to be full of hope…

Featur’d like him, like him with friends possess’d,
Or to have the looks of “him,” the friends of “him”…

Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,
The talent of “him” or the intellect of “him”…

With what I most enjoy contented least:
To essentially be someone else, for even the thing the Speaker most enjoys “now,” he will suddenly find dissatisfying.

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Yet, even as he thinks this, to the point of hating himself…

Haply I think on thee,–and then my state
His thoughts float to another — “on thee,” and once they do, everything changes.

(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
As does the imagery, Shakespeare introduces a beautiful image of a lark singing hymns at heaven’s gate. The Speaker finds something lovely amidst a “sullen earth.” That’s the same experience he will have as he…

For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings
Thinks of his one true love. And when he does, all is well.

That then I scorn to change my state with kings’.
So wealthy does he feel, to have (had) this love, that he wouldn’t exchange it for anything in the world. Nothing. Not even his “outcast state” with that of a king.

^{* Sonnet 29. | Public domain sketch courtesy of Karen’s Whimsy}