Content
Sonnet 32 is highly dependent upon the relationship between the subject and speaker of the sonnet. The speaker of the sonnet reflects upon “his own mortality” in comparing himself to the young man whom he loves, whether romantically or in friendship it is unclear. The speaker refers to himself as the “deceased lover” which is significant as it highlights the age difference between the two men, a perpetual theme throughout Sonnet 32 as well as the rest of the handsome youth sonnets. After accepting, his eventual death, the speaker takes on a “self-deprecating” tone referring to his poetry as “poor rude lines” (4) and beseeching the youth to remember him after his death. This emphasis on his failure in poetry is imperative as it frames the rest of the sonnet and the speaker’s request for the young man to remember him “for his love” (14).
The nature of this love is in disagreement however. While some critics believe that the love the speaker refers to is in actuality a “romantic” love, others are convinced that the “love” (14) referred to is a “platonic love”. Regardless of the type of love that is illustrated within the sonnet, romantic or platonic, the love declaration should be considered significant as it characterizes the speaker’s tone and content. However, the audience should “take with a pinch of salt” the seemingly modest self-denunciation and claims of inadequacy put forth by the speaker; due to the fact that they are simply a means by which the speaker emphasizes his affection for the subject.
Subsequently, the content of Sonnet 32 is dependent upon the outlook of the speaker and the love he feels for the subject.
Read more about this topic: Sonnet 32
Famous quotes containing the word content:
“To be content with life—or to live merrily, rather—all that is required is that we bestow on all things only a fleeting, superficial glance; the more thoughtful we become the more earnest we grow.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)
“Science asks no questions about the ontological pedigree or a priori character of a theory, but is content to judge it by its performance; and it is thus that a knowledge of nature, having all the certainty which the senses are competent to inspire, has been attained—a knowledge which maintains a strict neutrality toward all philosophical systems and concerns itself not with the genesis or a priori grounds of ideas.”
—Chauncey Wright (1830–1875)
“I am content to live it all again,
And yet again, if it be life to pitch
Into the frog-spawn of a blind man’s ditch.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)