SONNET XX, by William Shakespeare

ANALYSIS:

This sonnet by William Shakespeare has no title because it is part of a collection of sonnets dedicated to his lover, referred to as “fair youth”.

It displays the typical Elizabethan sonnet structure: three quatrains and a rhyming couplet, with the following rhyming scheme:

A

B

A

B

C

D

C

D

E

F

E

F

G

G

The first quatrain focusses on the topic of passion in women and in the “fair youth”, who possesses the positive characteristics of both women and man but the flaws of neither.

The speaking voice describes the “fair youth” as a man so beautiful he has a woman’s face, which was painted by Nature herself. The Fair Youth is both the mister and mistress of the lyrical I’s passion but he isn’t as fickle and false as women.

In the second stanza the speaker continues to point out the difference between the Fair Youth and women. They are false and pay attention to every man, while the attention of the fair youth is so precious that he enhances everything he looks at. The speaking voice says that he is a man with so many pure, bright colours inside that every hue is in his controlling; his bright self is so beautiful, colourful and mesmerizing that he possessed both masculine and feminine traits, like “hues” in his controlling that fascinate men and women alike.

In the last quatrain the lyrical I tells the reader that Nature made his lover as a woman so beautiful that she fell for him, but to have him for her she made him into a man, thus keeping Shakespeare from being with him, but only sexually since the lyrical I makes it clear that he’s in love with the fair youth.

The rhyming couplet sums up the sonnet and adds to its meaning. The speaking voice tells us that since Nature made the Fair Youth for women’s pleasure, he is happy leaving that to them and keeping his love instead.

This sonnets tells us a lot about the depth of Shakespeare’s love and about the idealised figure of the Fair Youth, who seems to not conform to his gender identity, meaning he may have been transgender or more likely non-binary or agender, which may be backed up by his “androgynous” beauty.