TEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF TH’EXPENSE OF SPIRIT (BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE)

Th’Expense of Spirit is a sonnet by English sonneteer William Shakespeare. It is of course written following the rules of the Shakespearian sonnet (three quatrains followed by a couplet) and the last couplet is a rhyming one. Moreover, the poem bears the same title as its first line, so the reader understands that it is part of a collection.

The title does not give many hints to the content: “spirit” is indeed a very vague word, which can be interpreted in several different ways, while the word “expense” probably refers to waste or consumption. The first quatrain explains to the reader that “Th’expense of spirit” is lust, which is described as a shameful and violent passion, able to corrupt men. In the following quatrain, lust is also shown to be a very contradictory obsession, since people madly search for it, but, when it’s over, it is hated by memory. The third quatrain does reinforce this description stating that lust is a deep joy while it is in progress, but it eventually turns to a great grief; beside, it is always an extreme and uncontainable passion. The final couplet sadly concludes that, even though everyone knows lust well, no one is able to find a solution for this dreadful passion which brings men to hell.

The whole sonnet is a hard accuse towards lust. The word “lust” is located in the second line to highlight the first one, which contains two definitions of lust: “expense of spirit” and “waste of shame”, which convey a sense of destruction and devastation, both physical (spirit) and moral (shame). The following list of adjectives, relating to human behaviour, gives a negative connotation of lust. In addition, the alliteration of “bl” (bloody, blame) conveys the poet’s contempt towards this passion. 

In line 5, there is a contrast between the words “enjoyed” and “despised” that stress the two different approaches to lust: the first before the action itself, the other after. To this purpose, lust is compared with a bait, which is very inviting at first, but it finally turns out to be a trap, and the too short duration of joy is underlined by the phrases “no sooner” and “straight”. One can also notice the repetition of the expression “past reason” (madly), which conveys the nonsense implicit in lust.

The third quatrain adds to this contradiction, also thanks to the use of the alliteration of “p” (“pursuit”, “possession”, “proof”, “proved”) and of “s” ( “possession so”),  which suggest a sense of insatiability and crazy search (the repetition of the verb “to have” in line 10 is made to the same aim) , while the recurrence of the “o” sound (“proof”, “proved”, “woe”) communicates the great sorrow after lust. The opposition between the two feelings provoked by this passion is finally stressed in line 12 (before – behind, joy – dream).

However, the entire sonnet is meant to highlight one last contradiction, presented in the couplet: everyone knows lust, but no one knows how to avoid it. Indeed, the parallelism and the contrast between the expressions “the word well knows” and “none knows well”, and the antithetical words “heaven” and “hell” are used to stress this inexplicable and incurable opposition.