Religious Interpretations
There is a Christian element present in Sonnet 144. Shakespeare refers to the man and woman as angels. Helen Vendler believes that the boy represents salvations while the woman is sin. “Q1 offers the familiar Christian model of the better angel and the worser spirit, both prompting the speaking, but transforms these spirits into loves, and gives them names deriving from theology: comfort (salvation) and despair (the unforgivable sin). The iconographic description fair/ colored ill supports the Christian model of angel and devil.”. The bad angel comes between the poet and the good angel. “Q2 while beginning with the Christian presumption that the bad angel wants to win soon to hell, slides away from the motive in lines 7-8, as a witty new version of the old plot emerges; the bad angel looses interest in the speaker, and turns her interest to the better spirit”. Sonnet 144 reflects Shakespeare’s relationships with young boy and the dark lady through the use of Christian images.
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