18 pages • 36 minutes read
Sonnet 43
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Themes
The Glow of Love
Traditionally, the Italian sonnet centers on a speaker’s meditation upon a nearly god-like woman, who inspires worship. While William Shakespeare’s speaker changes the gender of the object to The Fair Youth, the impetus of “Sonnet 43” (although English in form) is the same. The speaker longs for the blessing from the beloved’s sun-like presence.
The speaker feels warmest when in the presence of the beloved, and their life has dimmed because of his absence. This is made clear by how “all the day they view things unrespected” (Line 2). However, this dim view of the world is alleviated by the “bright” (Line 4) appearance of the beloved when they “sleep” (Line 3). It is then that the “shade” (Lines 8, 11), or dream vision, of the beloved “shines” (Line 8). The speaker sees the beloved in positive terms, noting how his “happy form” (Line 6) brightens “shadows” (Line 5) with a “light” (Line 7) that is brighter than any sunlight would be. This powerful glow is so intense and lauded that it suggests a godlike presence. This aligns with the Italian tradition.
That the speaker worships this presence is shown by their need to fall into “heavy sleep” (Line 12) to attend to it. It becomes the guiding principle of their days since all of their days are dull and “all nights bright” (Line 14). The speaker would rather praise this “clearer light” (Line 7) of his imaginary Apollo than go about the dimmed “living day” (Line 10). In this way, although “Sonnet 43” may break tradition due to the subject’s gender, it maintains the traditional focus on worship of the unattainable lover.
Obsession Fueled by Absence
“Sonnet 43” is considered by many as a love poem. However, like tales such as Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights (1847), F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925), or Shakespeare’s own drama, Othello (1604), it is actually a discussion of obsession. The beloved has broken with the speaker, and now the entirety of the speaker’s existence is colored with the beloved’s memory.
The speaker’s day-to-day existence is shrouded with the betrayal of the beloved. The speaker sees the world around them as “unrespected” (Line 2), having little value, and they note that “all days are nights” (Line 13), suggesting a dark, depressed mood. The speaker only revives when they enter a dreamworld in which their lover returns to them. This is not a healthy reciprocal relationship but one in which the speaker exhibits escapist behavior. They can’t wait to return to their dreams for “all days are nights to see till I see thee” (Line 13).
The dreams offer an idealized version of the lover, who, when he reappears, “shines” (Line 8) with a “clearer light” (Line 7) than anything else the speaker views. The speaker knows that this is not how their lover really was, since they admit they would rather have him “stay” (Line 12) in the “dead night” (Line 11) realm than “loo[k] on [him] in the living day” (Line 10). The speaker knows that the lover is a “fair imperfect shade” (Line 11), a ghost of the real man they knew. Still, they would rather numb themselves with “heavy sleep” (Line 12), and commit to this imaginary relationship, than do the difficult work of moving past the loss of love. It is understandable to mourn the death of a significant relationship, but the poem serves as a warning not to get engulfed by it.
The Hope for Reciprocal Longing
The concluding couplet of “Sonnet 43” shifts the audience’s perspective from the concentration of the poem on The Fair Youth. Instead, the end lines center on the speaker’s wish for recognition. While there is no doubt that the speaker thinks the relationship they had with The Fair Youth was important, they long for the same reciprocity.
The speaker longs for reunion with their beloved, but they also desire to return to a time when they were valued by him. That the focus has shifted to the speaker is shown by the construction of the poem’s final couplet: “All days are nights to see till I see thee, / And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me” (Lines 13-14). The end of the last line—show thee me—is significant, as it highlights how the speaker wants to be remembered by The Fair Youth. If the lover haunts the speaker’s dreams, the speaker should haunt the lover’s dreams as well.
It is easy to misread this last phrase as “dreams do show me thee,” which would be a repetition of the previous line’s ending. However, in a crucial turn, the concentration has reversed from the speaker imagining their lover to envisioning The Fair Youth imagining them. The dreams will “show thee me” (Line 14, emphasis added), the speaker notes, which asserts that they do not want to be forgotten. This emphasis on the self in the final line shows that the speaker wishes for reciprocal longing; the speaker not only wants to see but also be seen. As in many stories about betrayal and severing relationships, the speaker is haunted by the “shade” (Lines 9, 11) of the person who betrayed them, but hopes to possess him still.
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By William Shakespeare
