Poetry · Chapter
Sonnet XXIX explained
The speaker laments his outcast state and misfortunes, envying others' successes and feeling discontented with his own lot.
What happens
The speaker laments his outcast state and misfortunes, envying others' successes and feeling discontented with his own lot. However, the thought of his beloved transforms his despair into joy, making him value his love above any king's wealth.
Themes in this chapter
Love and Desire
The speaker's love for the beloved is the transformative force that lifts him from despair to joy, outweighing all material wealth.
Truth and Deception
The speaker's initial self-deception about his worth is replaced by the truth of his beloved's love, revealing a deeper reality.
Characters to notice
- William Shakespeare
The speaker of the sonnet, expressing personal despair and redemption through love.
- Love
The beloved whose memory brings the speaker from despair to ecstatic joy.
Key passages
“When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries And look upon myself and curse my fate”
When I am out of luck and looked down upon by others, I weep alone over my rejection and cry out to a heaven that seems not to hear, cursing my own destiny.
The speaker describes his initial state of despair and isolation.
“Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee, and then my state, Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate”
But just as I am about to hate myself, I happen to think of you, and my condition rises like a lark at dawn from the gloomy ground, singing praises at heaven's gate.
The thought of the beloved transforms the speaker's despair into joy.
“For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings.”
Because remembering your sweet love brings me such riches that I would not trade my situation for that of a king.
The speaker values his love above all worldly power and wealth.