Barbara
Benjamin
English
200 - Prof. Pollock
Examination of
Shakespeare's Sonnet 29
"When in
Disgrace"
The
overall sense is of a depressed man bewailing his feeling of disfavor "in
Fortune and men's eyes," comparing his lot with other men that he feels
have more intelligence or greater talents.
Then when reflecting on his special friend he makes a final comparison
of what that friendship means to him, thus completely reversing his previous,
momentary bout of depression.
In
this sonnet, Shakespeare makes excellent use of the "stock
response." The reader can generally
identify with such a depressive state of mind, of becoming so engrossed in
self-pity that the states of others look far better than his own. Most people—if not
all people—have experienced these kinds of feelings to one degree or
another. But once drawing the reader
into this universal kind of mood, the narrator then reverses that feeling,
thereby jolting the reader into another kind of reality—that of an exultant
state of mind. Again, most people have
had these kinds of experiences regarding a loved one.
To
add emphasis, the narrator's attitude toward heaven even changes depending on
his state of mind. In the first
instance, he feels that his cries to heaven are useless and heaven is
"deaf" to his complaints, that heaven even turns its back on
him. On the other hand, thinking of his
friend has such power that it not only changes his mood, but even his outlook
on life. Thinking of his friend restores
his faith, and he feels more like the lark, who "sings hymns at heaven's
gate." Such extreme images add
depth and power to the universal feelings he expresses—thus, helping to evoke a
more powerful stock response.
The
paradox in this sonnet is the narrator's statement that he "scorn[s] to
change [his] state with kings." The irony is that the actual state of
kings is not very desirable. A king's
state is full of stress with the responsibilities that stretch far beyond those
of the common person. A king's state,
then, isn't generally one to be envied. So, though the thoughts of his friend
appear to give him an exulted feeling, they also bring him back to an
appreciation of his own life.
They in effect bring him back to reality—or in the lexicon of