Sonnet 20 by Shakespeare

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A woman's face with nature's own hand painted, Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion; A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted With shifting change, as is false women's fashion: An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling, Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth; A man in hue all hues in his controlling, Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth. And for a woman wert thou first created; Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting, And by addition me of thee defeated, By adding one thing to my purpose nothing. But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure, Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.
–William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 20 was published in a collection of 154 sonnets in the early seventeenth century. This particular sonnet is infamously known and widely interpreted due to questions raised regarding the sexuality of the narrator, and therefore Shakespeare himself. Sonnet 20, “has received more attention than many better ones, partly because of puzzling, punning seventh line may contain a clue to the identity of ‘the onlie begetter,’ and partly because the whole poem has been thought to raise the pseudo-problem of Shakespeare’s homosexuality.”

Context

Sonnet 20 is most often considered to be a member of the “fair youth” group of sonnets, in which most scholars agree that the narrator to be addressing a young man. This interpretation contributes to common assumption of the homosexuality of Shakespeare, or at least the speaker of his sonnet. The position of Sonnet 20 also influences its analysis and examinations. William Nelles, of the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, claims that, “Sonnet 20 splits readers into two groups: those who see an end to any clear sequence after this point, and those who read on, finding a narrative line connecting the rest of the sonnets in a meaningful pattern.” Scholars have suggested countless motivations or means of organizing Shakespeare’s sonnets in a specific sequence or system of grouping. Some see the division between the sonnets written to the “young man,” while others do not. A number of academics believe the sonnets may be woven into some form of complex narrative, while “Paul Edmondson and Stanley Wells confidently assert that the sonnets are ‘better thought of as a collection than a sequence, since…the individual poems do not hang together from beginning to end as a single unity…Though some of the first 126 poems in the collection unquestionably relate to a young man, others could relate to either a male or female.’”

Sexuality

The modern reader may read sonnet 20 and question whether or not Shakespeare’s sexuality is reflected in this sonnet. When looking at the sexual connotations in this sonnet it is important to reflect on what homoerotism meant during the time that Shakespeare was writing. Casey Charles discusses the idea that there was no official identity for a gay person at this time. There were words that identified what we would consider to be homosexual behaviour, but the idea of “gay culture” was not present. Charles goes on to say that these laws had very few transgressors, which means that either people did not commit these crimes of homosexuality or it was more socially acceptable than the modern reader would think. This lends itself to the idea that either Shakespeare had no idea of the homoerotic undertones in this sonnet or he was completely aware of how it would read. Shakespeare’s awareness of the homoeroticism still does not give light to the reader if he himself was actually practicing homosexual behavior.

One of the most famous accounts to raise the issue of homoeroticism in this sonnet is Oscar Wilde's short story "The Portrait of Mr. W.H.", in which Wilde, or rather the story's narrator, describes the puns on "will" and "hues" throughout the sonnets, and particularly in the line in sonnet 20, "A man in hue all hues in his controlling," as referring to a seductive young actor named Willie Hughes who played female roles in Shakespeare's plays. However, there is no evidence for the existence of any such person. (A "hue" was a servant; see OED, "hewe". The original word in the Quarto for "hues" is "Hews.")

Analysis

The possibilities for scholarly interpretations of Sonnet 20 are endless. While there is much evidence that suggests the narrator’s homosexuality, there are also countless academics who have argued against the theory. Both approaches can be used to analyze the sonnet. Philip C. Kolin, of the University of Southern Mississippi, provides analysis of several lines from the first two quatrains of Sonnet 20. Kolin interprets these lines as written by a homosexual figure. One of the most common interpretations of line 2 is that the speaker believes, “the young man has the beauty of a woman and the form of a man...Shakespeare bestows upon the young man feminine virtues divorced form all their reputedly shrewish infidelity.” In other words, the young man possesses all the positive qualities of a woman, without all of her negative qualities. The narrator seems to believe that the young man is as beautiful as any woman, but is also more faithful and less fickle. Kolin also argues that, “numerous, though overlooked, sexual puns run throughout this indelicate panegyric to Shakespeare’s youthful friend.” He suggests the reference to the youth’s eyes, which gild the objects upon which they gaze, may also be a pun on “gelding…The feminine beauty of this masculine paragon not only enhances those in his sight but, with the sexual meaning before us, gelds those male admirers who temporarily fall under the sway of the feminine grace and pulchritude housed in his manly frame.” Martin B. Friedman, of California State College, Hayward, holds an entirely different view. Friedman believes Sonnet 20 is written by a masculine heterosexual figure in relation to a variety of sports of Shakespeare’s time. For example, he argues, “the terms ‘Master’ and ‘Mistress’[of line 2], used interchangeably to refer, as here, to something which is an object of passionate interest of a center of attention, come from the game of bowls.” He continues to build connections between several phrases and, what he believes to be, references to terms used in gambling, more specifically in the game of bowls, which involves the rolling of a dice. Friedman claims, “And the imagery recurs in line 5: ‘An eye more bright then theirs, lesse false in rowling.’”

Amy Stackhouse brings an interesting interpretation to the form of sonnet 20. Stackhouse explains the form of the sonnet being written in iambic pentameter with an extra-unstressed syllable on each line lends itself to the idea of a “gender-bending” model. The unstressed syllable lends itself to a feminine rhyme, yet the addition of the syllable to the traditional form represents a phallus. Stackhouse also comments on the reveal of the gender of the addressee in the final few lines as a way of Shakespeare playing with the idea of gender throughout the poem. Stackhouse’s analysis of the nature aspect also seemed to play into the “gender-bending” model by creating this idea of Mother Nature falling in love with her creation and thus imparting a phallus to him. Which is represented in the extra-unstressed syllable as well. This idea of nature is also reflected in Philip C. Kolin’s analysis of the last part of the poem as well. Kolin’s observation of Shakespeare’s discussion of the man being for “women’s pleasure” does not lend itself to this idea of bisexuality or gender-bending at all. This is where Shakespeare is clearly saying that this is not homosexual love. Kolin is saying that nature made him for “women’s pleasure” and that is what is “natural” . Kolin goes on to say that the phrase “to my purpose nothing” also reflects this natural aspect of being created for women’s pleasure. In this, however, he takes no account of Shakespeare's common pun of "nothing" ("O") to mean vagina. Whereas Stackhouse would argue the poem is almost gender neutral Kolin would argue that the poem is “playful” and “sexually (dualistic)”

References

• Alden, Raymond (1916). The Sonnets of Shakespeare, with Variorum Reading and Commentary. Houghton-Mifflin, Boston.
• Baldwin, T. W. (1950). On the Literary Genetics of Shakspeare's Sonnets. University of Illinois Press, Urbana.
• Booth, Stephen (1977). Shakespeare's Sonnets. Yale University Press, New Haven.
• Dowden, Edward (1881). Shakespeare's Sonnets. London.
• Evans, G. Blakemore, Anthony Hecht, (1996). Shakespeare's Sonnets. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
• Hubler, Edwin (1952). The Sense of Shakespeare's Sonnets. Princeton University Press, Princeton.
• Schoenfeldt, Michael (2007). The Sonnets: The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s Poetry. Patrick Cheney, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
• Tyler, Thomas (1989). Shakespeare’s Sonnets. London D. Nutt.
• Vendler, Helen (1997). The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

External links

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• Paraphrase and analysis (Shakespeare-online)
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