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Sama El Feky-
Thursday, April 14, 2016
Professor Justin Kolb
Seventeenth Century Literature
Paper Two
Shakespeare’s Dilemma: Is the poet both sexually conservative and progressive?
Where Shakespeare stands when it comes to sex, or rather lust, has always been
confusing to his readers. Does Shakespeare have something against sex? or Is he simply lashing
out for feeling betrayed? Would he ultimately rather be in forbidden lust or not? The poet seems
to be in a bit of a dilemma himself. While Shakespeare is considered a hopeless romantic by
many, he ties negativity with sexual desire in sonnets 129 and 147, which are a strong contrast to
his more positive sonnets about lust. The poet is so conflicted that he might be in fact both
sexually conservative and progressive, making him logically a hypocrite. On the one hand, he
supports the traditional view by trying to steer clear of the act of sex and shaming a sexually
promiscuous lady. On the other hand, he portrays a guilty man, himself, who seems to want to be
sexually monogamous.
On the surface of sonnet 129, the difficulties with sexual intimacy are as central to it as
its delights. Shakespeare frowns upon sex by referring to it as “The Expense of Spirit in a Waste
of Shame”. The poet portrays a vivid picture of sex and lustful desires before, during and after,
as he stresses that making a sinful action will only lead to a bubble of shame and loneliness with
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no one to turn to. He makes it clear that even though sex initially looks pleasant and tempting,
eventually the outcome will only be full of shame, guilt and most importantly regret.
Shakespeare describes the anticipation of sex, before the act, as savage, extreme, rude and cruel.
After the act, he feels shameful, disgusting and conflicted. During the act, however, the
experience is simply magic. The act of sex, according to shakespeare, has unimaginable
consequences because it’s a sin that drives reason and control completely out of the mind. He
pictures it as an addiction that is impossible to beat or survive. Shakespeare bluntly warns that
everyone who is sinning through sex will be thrown in burning hell for eternity. He believes that
while the world is supposedly aware of this, none knows enough to not fall for the heavenly sin.
Feeling as if he can never fully redeem himself, Shakespeare genuinely believes he is
doomed. He feels like he is wasting his spirit through sin, in the act of shameful sex. The poet is
conflicted about not just the pursuing of lust but also about the possession of it, as the process is
simply wonderful but the result is downright awful. Is he solely talking to himself though or
directing a message to someone else? The poet’s writing is indeed noticeably different as if he is
avoiding to make it specifically about him. Either way, the sonnet comes across as a vital
warning to everyone, including Shakespeare himself. Could the sonnet be about masturbation?
Or maybe masturbation and then sex? While it is clear that Shakespeare is the obvious luster in
the sonnet, It is not very obvious who is being lusted after. In line 10, the poem starts to reverse:
after, during and before. The poet then reflects on the past, as he comes from a place outside of
his control. The order changes again: before, during and after. Shakespeare’s hesitation is
intensely clear because he gets to a point that this transitionary moment of the whole act is
actually fully pleasant but it’s temporary because he then recalls it as a source of pain.
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The poet seems to have been angrily carried away while writing this piece because it’s
not only extremely short, two sentences, but it also includes two arguments that simply
contradict each other. The first argument is that no one should practice sex as it is a shameful and
regretful act, while the second argument is that the experience of sex is so high that there is no
way to get higher than that or to feel the rush in any other way. Shakespeare is basically stressing
that sex is a sin but it is absolutely worth it. Is he addicted to sex and lust? The sonnet certainly
seems to be about addiction in a way: from the highest high to the lowest low. Shakespeare
appears to feel that escaping his hell would be giving up his heaven and he just can’t bring
himself to do it. The poet fundamentally both loves and despises sex because it’s against all his
instincts. Similar to all his other sonnets, sonnet 129 never offers an escape. The poet is very
aware of reality and its consequences, pointing out that the whole world knows lust is a sin and
yet everyone feels it and acts on it anyway. Shakespeare’s reason knows better but because it
repeatedly gets ignored, it quits in frustration from the hopeless situation.
Shakespeare’s reason is also past care in sonnet 147 because yet again he lusts after
someone that will only drive him to do things against his conservative beliefs. Reason has failed
because it no longer has the power to eliminate the poet’s despair of loving the mistress.
Shakespeare seems to say that he wants this lustful feeling to last longer even though he
negatively labels it as a disease. The poet metaphorically describes reason as a physician that
should be able to cure his disease. Because he does not listen to his reason anymore though, the
possibility of healing is not even possible anymore. The lines between his expectations of the
relationship and the actual outcome of the relationship are blurred for Shakespeare. His
depressing and self-judging tone indicates that he is too out of control and out of reason. Feeling
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betrayed by his mistress’s actions, Shakespeare is so wounded that he is not giving any room for
forgiveness or hope. He is repeatedly telling his black mistress that although she is beautiful, she
is also dark and vicious. Even though he urges that he is done with her, Shakespeare feels desire
will probably be the death of him. He wants her very much and unfortunately she is not making
it any easier for him to move on. Shakespeare obviously feels like he should not be dominated by
such an attraction but he simply does not have the required strength to do anything about it.
While Shakespeare feels it’s too late to proceed with such a relationship, he still wants to
be consumed by love, sex and desire. He does not seem to mind that she might eventually
destroy him because in a way he wants to self-destruct himself. Why doesn’t he just forget about
her? Because his reason yet again seems to have given up completely on him, just like sonnet
129. Shakespeare wants to damage his sense of self and throw away his dignity in the fire. What
keeps him going though? Possibly, the feeling transcending from love and even lust. He seems to
be enjoying the intense torture of sexual lust that he is going through because otherwise he can at
least try to prevent the act of lusting after someone for the sake of his own beliefs. Even though,
time and time he refers to the relationship as over, Shakespeare’s internal thoughts and emotions
speak the opposite. He is so deeply infatuated that he lost hope and care of ever being cured.
Both his thoughts and speech are all over the place that he actually feels like a madman.
In conclusion, Shakespeare’s primarily focus is the idea of mental obsession being as bad
as physical torment. Both sonnets 129 and 147 s hare a haunted view of lust, as addictively
dangerous with tremendous power to eternally damage. Shakespeare blocks reason in both
sonnets, causing him to be in a major dilemma between being conservative and progressive. The
poet is so blinded by lust that he doesn’t fully listen to his loudest instincts anymore. One of the
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few differences between the two sonnets is that while Shakespeare gives his insights on mental
lust, desire, by using paradoxes and pessimistic language in sonnet 147, he stresses about
physical love, sex, by using contradictory impulses and polysemic language in sonnet 129. The
concept of both sonnets is the same though, which is that Shakespeare genuinely despises lust
but he simply can’t stop himself from either thinking of it or acting on it. Sonnet 129 seems to be
mainly directed at general audience with Shakespeare finding heaven in hell, lust. Sonnet 147,
however, contains a darker tone with Shakespeare addressing specifically the black woman in a
depressing lustful letter. Shakespeare’s obvious sexual frustration is tearing him in two different
directions, a usual tactic of the poet’s to assess lines or parallel structure using antithesis.
Although it’s undermining him, the poet just worships being in lust. Sonnets 129 and 147 suggest
an extremely pessimistic ending to lust, as the last image in both sonnets is of burning hell.