by Ted Sherman

Created on: May 26, 2007

The sonnet seems to be based on a personal experience. If it is, Shakespeare is furious and bitter about a failed love affair. Like so many jilted lovers, whose pride and ego have been damaged, he compares his unhappy feelings of rejection to illness and insanity.

The pain is clear in his descriptions: "past cure I am", "desire is death" and "my thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are" One can imagine him at his writing table, angrily scratching out his anguish as teardrops fall on to the paper. History doesn't offer any clues about the woman. We know Shakespeare was married to Anne Hathaway and had several children. There is no record of discord in that relationship.

The Bard was constantly involved in staging and directing his own plays, and theater people then, as now, led emotionally charged lives. However, if this sonnet indicates a failed love affair with one of the actresses in his plays, it may add an intriguing question. In those days, all the female roles were acted by young boys.

The poem doesn't give any background to the affair, nor does Shakespeare describe the the physical appearance of the lover. The last two lines sums up all the bitterness of the jilted swain, and the words are an almost comical case of sour grapes:

"For I have sworn thee fair and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night."

So, there!

Learn more about this author, Ted Sherman.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.