Sonnet 4 - Outside Literary Criticism

Outside Literary Criticism

Many critics seem to agree with H.E. Rollins that Shakespeare’s Sonnets “provide direct evidence concerning Shakespeare’s private life”. Even Horace Furness seems to think that the “absurdities” found in the grammar of the couplet in Sonnet 4 may have used as tactics of emphasizing a message to the reader and addressee. He says that they pose questions that “are more easily asked than answered”. There was even a scholar who posed the idea that the sonnets are divided into “two groups: all those which suggest moral irregularities are ‘dramatic’; the rest are written in Shakespeare’s own person”. There is no doubt that Shakespeare has one major if not many messages that he is sending to the world through his sonnets. Sonnet four is a prime example.

“Use”

One of the major themes throughout Quatrain 2 of Sonnet 4, as well as in a few other Procreation Sonnets, is the variations of “use,” as noticed by Halpern. Krieger points out that this repetition of the various forms of “use” are also seen in Sonnets 6 and 9. Critics take the repetition of different forms of “use” to mean many different things. It is pointed out by one critic that “the procreation sonnets display with particular brilliance Shakespeare’s ability to manipulate words which in his language belonged both to the economic and the sexual/biological semantic fields,”. This is definitely applicable to the word and manipulation of the word “use.” In terms of sexuality, it is commonly thought that the speaker is “advising the young man on the proper ‘use’ of his semen”. The same critic also interprets the sonnet as the man misusing his semen by masturbating. Seen throughout many of the Procreation Sonnets is the idea that “the proper ‘use’ of semen involves not the creation of life as such but the creation of beauty,”. The sonnet may not only be referencing masturbation though, the “language of usury in the procreation sonnets has strong associations with both prostitution and sodomitical relations,”. There is, however, an economic aspect as well, changing the connotation of the quatrain. “Usury may denote a specific economic practice,” but also at this time, “it all that seemed destabilizing and threatening in the socioeconomic developments affecting early modern England,”.

Sexuality

There are some fairly widespread questions as to whether or not the speaker may have a homosexual love interest in his friend the young man. This idea is hard to prove one way or the other but has been acknowledged by many writers and scholars such as Professor Robert Matz from George Mason University. It is difficult to tell if the speaker has a genuine respect and admiration for his friend or if there is more to it than that. However, this debate always comes down to personal opinions and it is up to the reader to decide what they would like to believe. Shakespeare uses many descriptions in this sonnet that are interpreted as sexual references. Renowned Shakespeare critic Joseph Pequigney writes in his book Such is my Love that line 10,“makes the most open reference to auto-eroticism. Being infecund, it involves both the expenditure of seed for self-gratification and withholding it from reproduction”. As Pequigney explains, in this sonnet not only is the speaker trying to convince his friend the young man to have children, but he is making an argument against masturbation, which is something the speaker sees as selfish and a waste of the young man’s great genetics. This line also contributes to the reason why this sonnet has been called “A Disquisition Forbidding Masturbation” by Joseph Pequigney. This subject of masturbation goes hand in hand with the idea of being alone and dying without producing children or heirs, something which the speaker thinks would be a selfish act and would deprive the future earth of beauty.

Beauty

Joseph Pequigney said that Shakespeare’s sonnets have “erotic attachment and sexual involvement with the fair young man with whom all of sonnets 1-126 are concerned”. Sonnet 4 clearly is a part of this group and does indeed have some references that can be taken as emotional descriptions. However, many critics seem to think that sonnet 4 is an exception in the sense that it points something much deeper than sexual attachments. Pequigney states that the sonnet “correlate economic and carnal operations, and it abounds in inconsistencies”. These inconsistencies that Pequigney mentions are things like “unthrifty beauty” is later then “beauteous niggard” and how this “‘profitless user’ who invests large ‘sums’ yet cannot ‘live’”. They allow for the following description of the Youth: One that can “at one and the same time be a prodigal and a miser, can be extravagant with himself yet unable to ‘live in posterity,’ and can utilize while refraining from utilizing the sexuality of his fetching self. This complexity is what creates a “transmission of beauty” and, according to Pequigney, this is what makes “the masturbation” unacceptable. Simon Critchley says that the meaning of the couplet is that “if you don’t reproduce you can leave no acceptable audit”. He evens compares Sonnet 4 to The Merchant of Venice in which Shakespeare is trying to emphasize themes concerning “increase, contract, abundance, waste, ‘niggarding,’ or miserliness”. This can be seen in the aforementioned complexities described by Pequigney. It seems as if the Speaker is insinuating that the beauty will die with the young man. This idea is reinforced by Joyce Stuphen who says that “In sonnet 4, it is nature that ‘calls thee to be gone’ and demands the ‘acceptable audit’”. Therefore the couplet seems to sum up the complexity of the sonnet with a proclaimed consequence.