Shakespearean view of love and time as revealed by his sonnets

by Amal HEWAVISSENTI

Indeed our critical faculties remain alert to what Shakespeare says through his sonnets about life. Nowhere has this doyen of English literature displayed his view of life in depth than in his sonnets a rare fruit borne in English poetry. William Shakespeare's sonnets deal with a wide spectrum of themes that range from love, infidelity, friendship, impermanence to the power of time and death.

It seems fair to say that his sonnets that show a high level of literary value keep the reader within the realm of an imaginary world where he is made aware of the nature of the world and human relationships. In short his poetry seems to be nice adjustments of human relationships, weighing good against evil.

Strangely enough, Shakespearean way of looking at pleasant uncomplicated issues of life is virtually different from how we view them. For example he speaks of the pleasant concept of love (or marital love) and its mild impact on life in tones of total condemnation in most of his sonnets.

The dark lady

It is usually unsafe to mistake his lightness of attitude or cynicism towards love for a lack of understanding about it. Several references of love scattered throughout this poetry carry the implied idea that he has been ruthlessly betrayed by an unfaithful 'dark lady'. Whether they were married or not, for some unexplained reason, they lived in world's far removed from each other though there are clues that Shakespeare had been head over heels in love with her.

Shakespeare is guessed to have been deeply moved by the dark and even sinister possibilities that lay in his path to enjoy an undisguised love.

He markedly has a sharply defined sense of love but it is unfortunately governed by his shocking experiences of love with the mysterious 'dark lady' with whom he had a 'civil war' of 'love and hate'. So, the essence of what the poet says about love carries an undertone of uncertainty latest even in a sacred relationship such as love.

Aspects of love and betrayal

In some of his sonnets, the poet looks at a particular dimension of love that is characterised by mutual deception, betrayed and lack of faithfulness. Once his beloved turns disloyally her back on him, he accepts it non chalantly and reflects passively on the nature of fragile relationships based on love.

Shakespeare levels his bitter sarcasm on those who pretend to love and bring disgrace on for no clear reason. This is because he has personally suffered the emotional torture of being sold down the river by his beloved lady. The idea implicit in the sonnets is that once a person discovers that his beloved lady has gone for another, the best step forward is to build a positive sense of abandonment of it and to go for a greener pasture.

'For sweet things turn sourest by their deeds.
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds."

Once should make up one's mind by unleashing negative impulses in the form of passive blaming as the first step to recover from the shock. Here, Shakespeare says that beautiful ladies who have deceived people when it comes to love, soon run into social contempt. Through dramatic poetry, he suggests that beautiful lilies, when rotten, gives our worse smell than weeds just as beautiful ladies do.

To err is human...

Shakespeare suggests a wonderfully practical attitude to the disappointment of love. After a person gives went to his outburst of despair at the situation, he can gradually blend his disappointment to the essential reality that is to the level of his perception.

"For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense
Thy adverse party is thy advocate...
Such civil war is in my love and hate"

These lines explicitly state Shakespeare's penetrating mind into the human nature and how to pardon its weaknesses. With an undercurrent of self sacrifice he identifies himself as the well- wisher of the lady who has turned away from him unjustly in the course of her romantic relationship with another. Moreover, a man fails to see the charm of a lady any longer once she has deserted him in her deliberate and stubborn desire to behave unacceptably. That is exactly why the poet say.

""I have seen roses damasked red and white
But no such roses see I in her cheeks."

Time as a power

Shakespearean perspective explains 'time' as a superlative power that determines the quick destruction of everything on earth, especially human relationships. sometimes the poet views 'Time' as a hidden power in action beyond the laws of nature. In short, time is seen as an expanse of unbroken continuity on which everything including man comes into being and vanishes to nothing.

'Devouring time, blunt thou the lion's paws

And make the earth devour her own sweet brood'

In these lines Shakespeare unabashedly questions the moral right of time to make the earth (naturally) kill the people (sweet brood) of her own.

What is explicit in these lines is that man's short lived life inevitably falls prey to death at Time's signalling and the Time has the unquestionable power even to cancel out the cruellest and most dangerous power (Lions Paws) in the world.

Friendship

Juxtaposed to the concept of Time, is the Shakespearean idea of friendship that will, in no way, be a victim to Time's action. To him, honest friendship seems to blend itself off to the immortality. Sometimes the human nature in Shakespeare painfully marks how his best friends have untimely failed lamentably before death, the harbinger of Time.

It is virtually safe to note that man's poetic intuition or deep understanding of the nature of the world is powerless against human nature when it loses control of itself in the face of bureavment of a friend.

'Then can I drown an eye (unused to flow)
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night"

This dramatic reference to nostalgic memories of friends who are dead suggests the idea of unavoidable separation of one's love. The underlying theme of all this is 'Time' in relentless action, what Shakespeare tries to convey here is his earnest belief that though friends may physically perish, in course of time, the friendship will remain alive and the mere memory of it lives on.

He identifies himself as a seasoned man who has never cried out of sorrow but at the thought of the loss of his friends he admits shedding tears.

Time challenged

After weeping over friends departed from this world, he turns to the one and only living friend whom he glorifies in terms which remind us of loving words spoken by a man to his beloved lady. It has not escaped our notice that his approach to this 'special' friend is rather eccentric as elements of romantic love are apparent in their relationship.

Shakespeare glorifies the 'beauty' of this man and challenges the transforming capacity of 'Time' as to destroy the memory of the eternal beauty of this man. Shakespeare is of firm belief that as long as people remember the beauty of this person and he remembers the friendship, Time cannot destroy the man.

'Thy eternal summer shall not fade."Here the poet weighs the transience of the beautiful season of summer against the eternal beauty and qualities of his friend that remain intact as long as he is kept within the living memory of people.

Again Shakespeare makes a strongly critical protest against his friend's tendency to remain unmarried in spite of his glamorous appearance to impress a lady.

We see the poet is making an earnest plea to him to leave a son when Time takes him away from this world one day.

"Then, how when nature calls thee to be gone.
What acceptable audit canst thou leave?"

'This aptly bears out the statement that Shakespeare's lost love is replaced by a deep friendship on which he seems to have depended for the rest of his life.