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Sonnet 138
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Sonnet 138
In order for a poem to be classified as a sonnet, it must meet certain structural requirements, and Sonnet 138, "When my love swears that she is made of truth," is a perfect example. Shakespeare employs the traditional rhyme scheme of the English sonnet, the poem is made up of three quatrains and a rhyming couplet, and iambic pentameter is the predominant meter. However, it would be an error to approach this poem as a traditional Shakespearean love sonnet. It is a ‘love’ poem in the sense that a relationship between two lovers is the central theme, but the reader is offered a somewhat unexpected viewpoint. The stylistic constraints of the sonnet form are extremely advantageous here, for they serve as a backdrop against which the poem’s content can be dramatically highlighted, as well as reinforcing the eventual impression that the poem describes an emotionally constraining relationship. In this essay I will investigate the tools with which Shakespeare constructs this unconventional love poem. The sonnet has a definite sense of strophic development, and the frequent ‘twists’ in the narration necessitate a close examination of this. The sonnet begins with a "When" clause, launching the reader on a sentence of indeterminate length and subsequently leaving us with expectation, in suspense, at the end of the line. The woman is emphatic: she does not merely tell the truth, she is made of truth. Both the nature of this truth, and the reason for her...
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