TH'EXPENSE OF SPIRIT

Th'Expense of Spirit is a sonnet by William Shakespeare. Since it is organised into three quatrains and a rhyming couplet it follows the typical Elyzabethan sonnet structure. In addition the reader can immediately understand that the sonnet is a part of a collection. In fact the first line of the sonnet bears the same words of the title.

Just considering the title the reader may expect the sonnet to be about a inner part of the human beings. Such expectation is created by the word "spirit". Instead this word is a very vague one, which could send the reader mind to a several number of words. Besides the word "expense" stands for a waste.

In the first quatrain is conveyed the idea of lust as "the expense of spirit". As a matter of fact you ca find the words "lust in action" underlining the physical aspect of sexual desire.

In the second quatrain, lust is also presented as an antithetic passion. In fact people search for it but when it's finished, they hate it.

The third quatrain seem to reinforce this description dealing with the problem of lust in action presented in the first quatrain. In fact during the act of sex the people enjoy but after it remains only in people's mind.

While the three quatrains present three different problems of the same aspect that in this sonnet is the sexual desire, the rhyming ending couplet states an epigrammatic close. In fact, the final couplet highlights that every human being knows what lust is, even if every human being doesn't know how to make a solution to this sentimental problem, bringing them to hell.

The whole sonnet seems to accuse lust as a religious pin. Indeed the poem seems to respect the typical medieval religious thoughts. The word "lust", located in the second line underlines the two different aspects of this. The reader can find a physical description conveyed by the word "spirit" and one more moral conveyed by "shame". It follows a list of neghative adjectives conveying the idea of pins.

The poet exploits the power of alliteration in the third quatrain. The repetition of the sound "p" ("pursuit", "possession", "proof", "proved") and of "s" ( "possession so"),   suggest of craziness. To this aim, the repetition of the verb "have" in the line 10 , reinforces this suggestion. Another important aspect is conveyed by the oxymoron (heaven, hell), suggesting the two different destination the lust brings. In fact during the sexual act people fells like being in heaven but only after can understand the sex without love is only a "expense of spirit"