Content in Contradiction: the Sonnets of Shakespeare, Sidney, Spenser, and Donne
Texts: William Shakespeare, 'Sonnet 138'; Edmund Spenser, 'Amoretti Sonnet 79'; Philip Sidney, 'Astrophil and Stella Sonnet 52'; John Donne, 'Holy Sonnet 19'

For all their praise of eternal youth and beauty, in particular sonnets, the Renaissance poets reveal an even greater preoccupation with virtue and its relationship to the divine. Spenser, in Amoretti Sonnet 79, and Sidney, in Astrophil and Stella Sonnet 52, both refer to virtue as an element of their amorous praise, and contrast it sharply with what Sidney calls ‘Love’, or the illusory outer beauty of a person. In Holy Sonnet 19, Donne takes Spenser’s idea of God-given virtue and applies it directly to a relationship with God, thus making the moral distinction between the holy truth and what is false and fading. The contraries of virtue and illusion, or pure truth and physical beauty, stew in animosity in all these sonnets, always in a struggle for power over the poet and the poet’s love. Shakespeare, however, implies in his Sonnet 138 that this particular contrary is necessary to the nature of his love; he makes no moral distinction between the two values, and instead of a single conceit winning out, they lie side by side, content in contradiction.

Edmund Spenser makes perhaps the most straightforward distinction between what most see as beautiful, i.e. the fading illusion of physical attractiveness, and what he deems as truly valuable – being “the gentle wit, / And vertuous mind” (l. 3-4). He begins by stating what is usually praised in this person, and even usually praised in sonnets across the board: “Men call you fayre, and you doe credit it, / For that your selfe ye dayly such doe see” (l. 1-2). The object of the poem can ‘see’ with her own two eyes what men praise her for; it is her beauty that men call fair, being unable to see past that to anything else. The poet is a bit pompous in claiming that he can see what truly matters, that beauty, to him, rests in the soul and in the mind. The contrary featured here is the classic argument of looks vs. personality – which is more important? Spenser places more value in the latter, which he believes is the lasting aspect of a person: “For all the rest, however fayre it be, / Shall turne to nought and loose that glorious hew” (l. 5-6). Eventually, in such terms, the beauty men can see will fade, leaving the ‘true beautie’ of the inner self.

Spenser is enamored of personality to the point that he compares its virtues to divinity, leaving physicality in the dust. For though all things come from God, from ‘that fayre Spirit’ (l. 11), it is the virtuous mind that is most blessed of them all. From this arises a different contrary of religious implications – “to be divine and borne of heavenly seed” (l. 10) is equated with Godly and this goodly things, while visual pleasures – “lyke flowers” (l. 14) – are equated with pagan, natural, and thus temporal things. For the poet, to have inner beauty is to go back to all roots, to where beauty first came from God. Spenser places virtue on a pedestal where it alone can be divine; he praises it above the physical on two levels.

Philip Sidney takes a more metaphorical route to illustrate a contrary that is essentially the same as Spenser’s: rather than stating their differences outright, Sidney personifies virtue and love as two paramours competing for Stella’s affection and self. Firstly they are ‘suitors’ in the poem, simply adding to the bevy of Stella’s admirers: “A strife is grown between Virtue and Love, / While each pretends that Stella must be his” (l. 1-2). Virtue and Love, capitalized intentionally to add to their essence as sentient characters, are having a battle over the possession of Stella – both figuratively, as suitors, and literally, as aspects of a personality. Sidney treats Love in this poem as that which tempts one physically – leading into sex or simply visual lust. This idea parallels Spenser’s treatment of outer beauty in that Love claims the parts of Stella that people can see and desire: “Her eyes, her lips, her all, saith Love, do this, / Since they do wear his badge, most firmly prove.” (1. 3-4) Her visual beauty is proof of Love’s ‘badge’, or that which love has conquered.

However, as evidenced in Spenser’s poem, physical beauty is only one poetic part of a person. In Sidney’s sonnet, the character of Virtue is fighting for the rest of Stella, or even all of her, for the sonnet implies that the presence of Virtue must negate physical beauty, since virtue and lust are seen as opposites: “But Virtue thus that title doth disprove: / … that Stella is / That virtuous soul, sure heir of heavenly bliss” (l. 5-7). Again, virtue is equated with being divine, pure, ‘heavenly’, and thus unsoiled by lust and Love’s claim over the body. Since the basic concept of Virtue’s claim in effect overrides that of Love, it would seem that Virtue ‘wins’, and is placed above the outer beauty, or visual Love. This is despite the fact that Sidney seems determined to split Stella in two, making her mind virtuous (and thus more worthy), but giving her body away to Love: “Let Virtue have that Stella’s self; yet thus, / That Virtue but that body grant to us” (l. 13-14). By doing thus, the poet could have the best of both worlds, so to speak, by having her body and admiring her mind from afar. In this way Sidney takes the opposing values of virtue and physical beauty and brings them further into the implication that the body is case and close to the speaker, while a good mind is ‘heavenly’ and true – or, as far away as Heaven.

While John Donne makes no specific mention of physical beauty in Holy Sonnet 19, his poem views love in the same light as found in Sidney’s; that is, love is of the body and thus the opposite of spiritual fulfillment, or virtue. Donne states outright that the subjects of the poem are contradictory; furthermore, that this ‘vexes’ him: “Oh, to vex me, contraries meet in one” (l. 1). The sonnet goes on to illustrate that the poet’s own virtue, or devotion to the holy, is betrayed by what he calls his ‘profane love’ (l. 6). Putting an adjective such as ‘profane’ in front of ‘love’ reveals a contrary in itself, for love is often treasured, revered as the greatest potential of humankind. But it is perhaps this very human aspect that troubles the poet; he feels further away from divinity the further he falls into love. The word love here can be equated with Sidney’s ‘Love’; both refer to a physical attraction, and perhaps on a deeper level, a sexual affair. Donne, however, draws a connection between virtue, i.e. thoughts of purity and inner truth, with devotion to God: “I durst not view heaven yesterday; and today / In prayers, and flattering speeches I court God: / Tomorrow I quake with true fear of his rod.” (l. 9-11) It can be inferred by these lines that the state of love causes a state of fear in the poet – fear of God’s wrath for staying from nonsexual virtue (the term ‘court’ in reference to God is a play on words, referring to infidelity to his love). The contrary, therefore, evolves from love and virtue to fear and devotion, as is made clear in Donne’s own words: “I change in vows, and in devotion” (l. 4). One day he is devoted to his human love, the next day to God, and this inconsistency ‘vexes’ him. At the sonnet’s end, the poet admits his preference for the state of love (l. 14). Though he is being false to faith, and lying to God, he prefers to be in love and in fear. However, Donne emphasizes that there are consequences for love, for infidelity to God’s truth, while devotion simply stands on its own, the more independent, righteous, and everlasting of the two.

So far, these sonnets have created contraries between conceits that are distinct, but nevertheless interrelated: outer and inner beauty, love and virtue, love in fear and religious devotion. At the heart of each pair lies the poet’s preference for truth; the conceit that prevails in each situation is the virtuous one, suggesting the moral preference for lasting truth over temporary illusion.

Shakespeare’s Sonnet 138 addresses the notions of truth and falsity head-on, layering them upon one another to make for double and even triple meanings. However, Shakespeare’s sonnet is different from the others in several extremely important ways. Firstly, the poet does not associate truth or lies with a physical or ethical counterpart. Although it is his ‘love’ that lies, lying is a part of her personality, not of any greater significance. Secondly, Shakespeare does not make a distinction of value between the two states of truth and lying. It seems obvious that lying would be the less valuable, but there are no adjectives used to support this traditional viewpoint. Finally, instead of one conceit putting itself against the other, in an eternal struggle that ‘vexes’ Donne, truth and lies settle together at the sonnet’s end. There is no fiery antagonism between them; instead, Shakespeare indicates that both are necessary and welcomed in this complex affair.

The contrary of the sonnet is brought out immediately in the first two lines, in an almost paradoxical form of flattery: “When my love swears that she is made of truth, / I do believe her, though I know she lies” (l. 1-2). Already the concepts of truth and falsity are being mingled in multiple layers: the love swears (truth) that she is true (truth), and the poet believes her (truth) against his better judgment (false); thus the love is actually lying (false) and the poet is lying to himself (false). As if this weren’t complicated enough, the poet claims that neither of them deny their true states (truth), although they each praise the other with an untrue compliment (false). These layers form an interesting juxtaposition: though there are certainly two different values here as well as two opposite methods of expressing them, the relationship between true and false is hardly the ‘strife’ described in Sidney’s poem, nor does the poet seem ‘vexed’ by a predicament of contraries like Donne. In fact, the poet in Shakespeare’s sonnet goes so far as to say that this true love necessitates lying, that the best love comes out of supposed virtue: “Oh, love’s best habit is in seeming trust, / And age in love loves not to have years told.” (l. 11-12) Contraries in phrases such as ‘seeming trust’ are littered throughout the poem, emphasizing and re-emphasizing the fact that there are opposing values being lain close together.

Shakespeare draws no figurative connection between love and lies, as the other poets do; and yet – the word ‘lie’ in itself becomes sexually suggestive, as in the line “Therefore I lie with her and she with me” (l. 13). Both the lying and loving are mutual: there is no animosity between them in regards to the presence – or perhaps the absence – of truth. Rather than make an overarching judgment on either value, Shakespeare questions the negative effect of the contrary, suggesting that neither need win nor be praised beyond what is natural: “But wherefore says she not she is unjust? / And wherefore say not I that I am old?” (l. 9-10) If each lover is content with lying and being lied to, these lines suggest, then there is no injustice, and there is a bastardized truth within the agreement to be false. Without moral distinction, Shakespeare is able to write the two sides of his contrary into a contented agreement to disagree.

It would seem that in these four sonnets, the typical poetic subject of physical beauty is rejected in favor of another, more lasting beauty. Shakespeare then rejects this notion, the idea that virtue and truth is always preferred and always triumphant, and writes of an even more unusual situation – the mutual acceptance of immorality. Love is indeed a complicated thing, these poets seem to say – living in duality and contradiction of itself.


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