Page 223 - DENG405_BRITISH_POETRY

British Poetry

Notes In things right true my heart and eyes have erred,

And to this false plague are they now transferred.
The poet reflects on his infatuation with the woman and is perplexed by what he finds. He is uncertain
whether to blame his eyes or his heart, or both of them jointly. They both seem to be in error in
supposing that so foul a person is in fact fair and worthy of love. The previous sonnets were far
from flattering to the woman, having suggested that her sexual appetites were almost unlimited.
This one is no better, and implies that she is like a common prostitute, being ‘the bay where all men
ride’ and ‘the common’ where all men have free access.
Sonnets 46 & 47 describe a conflict between heart and eyes which is resolved by an alliance between
the two. In this sonnet both heart and eyes are portrayed as being at fault in perverting what they
perceive. But pride of place is given to the eyes, in that they are shown to lead the way and, being
corrupt, they drag the heart along behind them. The distinction is only poetic and has no
psychological basis, nor did it have in Shakespeare’s day. He is merely elaborating a conceit which
serves the purpose of illuminating the contradictions in his heart over his blind infatuation for the
dark lady. The function of eyes in setting a soul on the pathway to love had been well established by
Petrarch, ever since that fatal Good Friday on 6 April 1327 when he first set eyes on Laura in the
Church at Avignon. Shakespeare is merely following this convention by attributing to the eyes the
power to lead the way in love, and to subvert the personality. It is also entirely consistent with the
blindness of Cupid, which does not however prevent Cupid from seeing with a sixth sense. As
Virgil said Quis fallere possit amantem? ‘Who can deceive a lover?’
The sonnet continues in the less than flattering tone of flattery which the previous three sonnets
have used. His mistress is a piece of common land to which all men have access, a harbour in which
all ships ride, she has a foul face which is painted to look fair, and finally she is a false plague, which
has the power to infect all at random. This is far from the tradition of the Petrarchan praise of Laura
which had set the precedent for all sonneteers thereafter, so that mistresses were nearly always
praised as lofty, beautiful, chaste and inaccessible goddesses. It is true that a contrary tradition had
been established which rebelled against this slavery and fantastic idealisation of women, an
idealisation which had little basis in reality. Sir Thomas Wyatt, whose poems Shakespeare would
have known, had already introduced a more down to earth approach to loving and courtship. And
sonnet sequences had already been published which consisted of a main section devoted to adoration,
followed by a concluding section which repudiated love, the cold beloved, and the slavery which
held the lover in chains.
These poems to the dark lady are however rather different because of their psychological complexity
and because the element of Petrarchan praise is replaced by straight speaking which is little short of
insulting. The lady cannot have regarded it as flattery to be spoken of as a common prostitute,
however much she might have enjoyed her power over men. Nor can it have been pleasing to be
told that her face was foul, or that she was a ‘false plague’, or ‘as black as hell, as dark as night’.
Nothing in the sonnet literature of the time prepares us for such an onslaught on a loved one, and
we have to conclude that, despite the occasional tender words to his mistress, the poet did not find
the experience uplifting, certainly not spiritual, and that it was in many ways a source of revulsion
and self-disgust which he found it impossible to flee from or expiate from his soul.
The unflattering tone of this sonnet and the other sonnets to the dark lady are in contrast with the
Petrarchan tradition of sonneteering, in which the addressed woman is represented as lofty, chaste,
and unattainable. Sir Thomas Wyatt, whose works Shakespeare would have known, had already
breached this tradition with poems such as The Lady to Answer Directly with Yea or Nay. However,
while other poets had represented women as less idealistic, in this sonnet Shakespeare downright
insults the object of his desire, calling her “common,” like a prostitute, and a “false plague.” This
degrading tone implies that the love affair was, for the speaker, unpleasant and even shameful.

216 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY