Introduction
‘Soul and body’ is sonnet 146 of the William Shakespeare. It is among the ‘Dark Lady’ sequence of poems. Poet is telling his own soul to go for spirituality and leave aside focus on physical world. Some other important sonnets of the Shakespeare are sonnet 29, sonnet 71 etc.
Central Idea
The main idea of the poem is to shift focus from outward beauty of the body i.e. charm of physical world to the development of inward self i.e. Soul by spirituality and other means. Poet is having one-sided conversation with soul and advising it to not get distracted by physical beauty of this world as it is short lived.
Themes
- Transitory nature of physical beauty – This poem belongs to dark lady series. Poet is believed to have snubbed by a lady and he has dragged away from focusing on his inward self to physical world. Although all the attractions of physical world are transitory which will end soon. Hence he asks his soul to stop focusing on ‘outward walls’ enlighten yourself.
- Development of soul – Poem has its main focus on enlightenment of the soul. Our body and other physical world is for a very short period of time and still we are generally lost in taking care of that instead we should move towards releasing our soul from the clutches of physical world as the physical world belongs to ‘worms’ and soul to God.
Figure of Speech
- Alliteration – ‘that thee’, ‘this thy’ and ‘so shalt’ have repetition of first sound of consonants /th/ and /s/ hence it has alliteration.
- Enjambment – It is a device when sentence is continued to the next line. There are several instances of that in the poem. One among them is -Shall worms, inheritors of this excess, Eat up thy charge?
- Paradox – ‘Death once dead, there’s no more dying then’ has paradox as death is supposed to make others die but here poet is making death die which is opposite to the genuine nature of death. It means here that when soul is enlightened it is freed from clutches of birth and death cycle and meet up the god. Hence it will no more die in the form of a body.
- Metaphor – ‘Sinful Earth’, ‘outward walls’, ‘fading mansion’ and ‘servant’ are metaphors for body.
- Rhetorical question- ‘Shall worms, inheritors of this excess, Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body’s end?’ has rhetorical question as it seems like a question but it is not. Instead it’s a heightened way of expression where poet’s answer to supposedly fake question is hidden in itself.
Dark lady sonnet
It is among those 28 sonnets which are based on a mysterious ‘dark Lady’. This lady caused woes and pains to the poet. In this poem also the outward beauty on which poet is focusing on is indicated towards the dark lady who snubbed the poet. She had distracted the poet by her beauty. Hence poet wants his soul to focus on itself rather than beauty of this physical world.
Misprinted lines in the poem
There is a long drawn debate over this sonnet. The first line of the poem ends at ‘my sinful earth’. The initial version printed of this poem had ‘my sinful earth’ phrase at the starting of second line too. Intellectuals of literature found it breaking rhythm of the sonnet and they doubted how Shakespeare could make such mistake of deviating from its meter. Hence they took it as printing mistake. Later on this phrase was replaced by other phrases and finally such additions were removed completely.
Structure and Rhyme scheme
Poem is a classical Shakespearean sonnet. It is divided into three quatrains (four line stanzas) and a concluding couplet. It has Rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG.
William Shakespeare : Critical Appreciation of ‘A Consolation’ (Sonnet 29) – http://ourguruji.in/2023/11/21/critical-appreciation-of-on-consolation-sonnet-29th-william-shakespeare/
William Shakespeare : Critical Appreciation of ‘The Triumph of Death’ (Sonnet 71) – http://ourguruji.in/2023/11/21/critical-appreciation-of-the-triumph-of-death-sonnet-71-william-shakespeare/
William Shakespeare : Critical Analysis of play ‘Twelfth Night’ - http://ourguruji.in/2023/12/18/critical-analysis-of-play-twelfth-night-of-william-shakespeare/
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