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contrary, the speaker is losing his sanity as time progresses. In the past, perhaps, the speaker's rational thought processes allowed him to cope with failed romances. However, in the presence of this love for his dark mistress, all his logical mental abilities are overpowered. His rational mind, which he depends on for truth and sanity, has left him in the face of love. The torment of love has made it impossible for the speaker to make truthful, objective observations about his world ('Companion to' 43).
In this poem, Shakespeare claims that it is love, not reason, that shapes one's perception of the world, for one's mind, the ideal and rational judgment-maker, is subject to and overwhelmed by the whims of emotion ('Companion to' 44). At the beginning of Sonnet 147, the speaker's love is described as a fever, but as the sonnet continues, the effects of love intensify. Towards the end of the poem, love has completely overwhelmed his mind, inducing him to become 'frantic-mad (Line 10). ' He continues, 'My thoughts and my discourse as mad men's are, /At random from the truth vainly expressed (Lines 10 and 11). ' The language Shakespeare chooses further emphasizes the crazed effect love has had on the speaker's mind (Rose, A Biography 72). The word 'discourse', for instance, derives from Latin, meaning 'to run about. ' The use of this word creates a clear image of a mad man running wild and uncontrolled. This love not only makes him go insane, it also blinds him from the truth (Rose, A Biography, 74). He says, 'For I have sworn thee fair and thought thee bright, /Who art as black as hell, as dark as night (Lines 13 and 14). ' The speaker's logical mind knows that his woman is evil, yet his love for her blinds him and he sees her as beautiful.
Love, then, is, for Shakespeare, a force that operates within several different contexts. As such, love has a multi-faceted definition, which yields to a multi-faceted identity. Shakespeare defines love in three different ways. First, love can be seen as an internal force fighting against other internal forces, as we see in Sonnet 147, where the speaker's inner turmoil stems from the battle of his love against his reason within himself. Second, Shakespeare epics love as an internal force which battles external forces, such as social pressures.
Finally, Shakespeare portrays love on an even larger scale, where Love is an external power that, independent of any individual, struggles against and then defeats Time, another external entity (Booth 14). Clearly, if love is an overwhelming, forceful entity that defeats time, death, social pressures, and reason, then love is no longer simply an internalized emotion; it is also an externalized power which can exist independent of human beings (Booth 22). Sonnet 147 deals with love as an internal agony where there is no mention of outside forces at play. This is a personal poem where Shakespeare uses the metaphor of disease and illness to represent the obsessive love which has taken over his speaker's senses ('The Works' 119). The speaker describes an internal battle where his mind is being devoured by his crazed sickness, love. Both his love and his reason though, are internalized, sparring forces.
In contrast to poem 147, Sonnet 130 describes the experiences of a man's struggle against external, social factors, such as his culture's romantic ideal for one's beloved. Here, the speaker's love is an internal force which overcomes external factors, as the speaker uses love as a justification for his adoring relationship with a woman ('The Works' 134). In Sonnet 116, Shakespeare goes one step further, and depicts two external forces, Love and
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Research essay sample on Multi Faceted External Forces
