Textuality » 4A Interacting
The Poem is part of Shakeseare's sonnet collection, in particular it belongs to the one dedicated to the Dark Lady.
It is organized obviously on the Elizabethan or Shakesperean model. It is made up by three quatrines (where the problem posed is analysed in three different ways) and a rhyming couplet (wich provides a ossible solution).
Reading the title the reader expect the sonnet to be about a dynamic issue and in addition if he associates ''th'expens of spirit'' with the expense of sperm, so orgasm, he'll supose the poem to be about sexual intercourse or lust.
The sonnet advances a reflection on the feelings and insincts that push human beings to lust, wich is an universal topic, known and shared by everybody.
In the first quatrine the reader can notice that the speaking voice speaks about lust like ''lust in action'' so physical lust, considered a ''shame'' both because it is treated like a sin both because it is, actually, an ''expense'' so a ''waste'' of life.
Lust in action is judged and dscribed with negativ qualities as:
''perjur'd'', ''murd'rous'', ''extreme'', ''not to trust'' later developed and explained.
The adjective ''perjur'd'', ''not to trust'' and later many expressions that approach two opposite actions like '' enjoy'd'' and ''despised'', ''before'' and ''behind'', ''hunted'' and ''hated'', ''bliss'' and ''woe'' creates the idea in the reader that one of the main problem of lust is its falsity that makes ''the taker mad''.
The language used is strong and passionate so to underline and evoce the strenght and incontollability of this instinct.
The use of an initial statement, the repetition of the word ''action'' twice, and the frequent use harsh sounds like ''b'' or ''r'' seems to advance an argumentation and gives energy to the lines.
In the second quotrine the speaking voice expresses the incoherence, the madness of lust. As first at the end of the quotrain is underlined the word ''mad'' by the alliteration of sound ''m'' in ''make-mad'', by the stress posed on it and its repetition in the next line. The repetition of ''past reason'' twice puts into focus the powerlessness of rationality on insinct (lust), on that desire man can't control and his inevitable carnality. In addition the idea of madness and bestiality is focused by the word ''haunted'' and ''bait'' simile for vagina.
In the third quatrine is also suggested the idea of madness desregard the passing of the time signalled by the expression ''had, have and in quest to have'', by the adjective ''extreme'' (because lust as madness can't be controlled) and the word ''possesion'' that recalls the adjective ''haunted''.
Also the theme of falsity ( ''made on purpose'', ''bliss-proof'') connected with dissatisfaction (the use of three different verb tenses means that we want more) is expressed anew.
The cuplet openly says that lust ( and its ''rude, cruel side) is known by everybody ''All this the world well knows'' but no one knows how to ''shun'' so to controll it.
''the heaven'' that leads men to ''hell'' (lust) is probably pleasure, vagina or other tools of seduction. That's why everybody feels lust and fallows lust, because its cause is a sort of temporary heaven on earth. Last but not least the rhyming couplet ''well-hell'' recalls to the theme of madness, and also the words ''heaven-hell'' remember the reader that Shakespeare has still something of the medieval manichean point of view.