Sonnet 47 for Anne Hathaway?

[mike thomas]

Good day to everyone

I wonder if some kind person might care to comment on Sonnet 47:

Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is tooke,
And each doth good turnes now vnto the other,
When that mine eye is famisht for a looke,
Or heart in loue with sighes himselfe doth smother;
With my loues picture then my eye doth feast,
And to the painted banquet bids my heart:
An other time mine eye is my hearts guest,
And in his thoughts of loue doth share a part.
So either by thy picture or my loue,
Thy selfe away, are present still with me,
For thou nor farther then my thoughts canst moue,
And I am still with them, and they with thee.
Or if they sleepe, thy picture in my sight
Awakes my heart, to hearts and eyes delight.

1: I have two questions: is this sonnet concerned with an image?

2: Could one imagine WS sending this sonnet to his wife Anne?


Thanks in advance for any comments

[Charles Darnay]

1. The sonnet draws parallels between the eyes and the heart, and how each consumed his Love. For the eyes, the Love is indeed an image, for that is all the world is to the eyes. For the heart - linked to thoughts - the Love is a feast, but a distant feast. After the volta, he writes about how the eyes and the heart connect to reach his Love.

2. I may belong too much to the school of Barthes, but I believe that you should not conflate Shakespeare and the speaker of the sonnets. They are not the same. So the sonnets are not written for Anne Hathaway, or the Earl of Oxford, and the Dark lady is but a fiction. Sonnet cycles, because the personal nature tend to be conflated with the author, but even Petrarch - who writes about the real Laura, is not Petrarch in the sonnets, and she is not Laura.

[mike thomas]

Thank you Charles Darnay

I got bogged down with eyes pictures and paint!

As for Hathaway, I suppose WS didn't really give a toot, what with all that acting, composing, writing, purchasing lands, gallivanting around the world, and visiting the courts of kings.

cheers mate!