Lust in Sonnet CXXIX (129) Essays -- Sonnet essays

Lust in Sonnet CXXIX (129) A Savage Action Full of Blame - The essences of pure lust and its dark side. That is, in a word, what Shakespeare in his Sonnet CXXIX1 describes. His language is full of resentment, frustration and self-blaming. A real, emotional, affected language - no flourishes. Shakespeare doesnt write about eternal love, the beauties of a woman or ghostly relations - all themes which we might expect from a classical sonnets. No - he talks about lust and the feeling of being dominated and helpless. And change surface a certain kind of vicious circle is strongly reflected in his choice of word and the atmosphere of the poem. If we runner take a brief prospect at the formal aspects of Shakespeares Sonnet, we detect rather easily that it is presented in a very traditional way. Besides the classical end-rhyme scheme, we find a lot of examples ( e.g. stock certificate 11) of alliteration, which give the poem a very harmonic and smooth tone. But in analysing the forma l aspects, there is a far more interesting and eventful point. The syntax of the poem already tell us a lot, especially about the word lust (l.2). In twelve of fourteen lines lust is the subject. To come in it in another way, we can say that almost the whole poem is subjected - in the sense of being dominated, ruled by something - to lust. This fact concerning the syntax, leads us to the first step of interpretation, namely the characteristics of lust. It seems, in accordance with the poem, that lust is something strong, domineering and taking possession. But not only the syntax of the first sentence leads us to much(prenominal) a definition of lust the words - or in general the language - in the poem speaks for itself ...and till action, lust Is pe... ...d, one strongly feels the obsession, the derangement and the extreme, because his language clearly reflects these ideas, too. And also Shakespeares impressing use of obvious and hidden dualistic expressions, makes the read er part of his vicious circle. I think Shakespeare manages to present us a very apt - and also very beautiful - description of lust The essence of the dark side of lust built up by helplessness, anger , frustration and the knowing that this vicious circle of attraction and domination will never end. Works Cited1 Shakespeare, William Sonnet CXXIX, Norton Anthology of Poetry, fourth edition, London, p. 240 1 Marquis de de Sade (1710 - 1814) French writer who, with the ideas of his literary works, coined the expression sadism 2 taken from the lecture Poetic Movements from Martin Heusser at University of Zurich, 3.5.2000