My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
The uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,
At random from the truth vainly express'd;
For I have sworn thee fair and thought thee bright,

Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.

- William Shakespeare

Despite remaining the most popular literary figure of his time, very a little is known about William Shakespeare’s life beyond its basic facets. Over the centuries scholars have scoured numerous texts and have managed to compile an outline of Shakespeare’s life. However many of the more sordid details remain theory. These are often backed up by scant pieces of evidence mainly taken from Shakespeare’s own work. 

As well as producing a vast portfolio of work, Shakespeare also lent his name to the very form in which the majority of his sonnets are written in, the Shakespearean sonnet. However he was not the only writer of his time to contribute towards the development of the form otherwise known as the English sonnet. Unlike its Italian cousin, the Petrarchan sonnet, the Shakespearean sonnet consists of three quatrains or four lines each and a concluding rhyming couplet. Each quatrain serves to develop an element of the narrator’s dilemma with the volta occurring between the final quatrain and the couplet. As the solution on the problem must be found in two lines, the final couplet of the sonnet tends to be particularly witty and significant. In regard to the development of the Petrarchan sonnet in this period, Carol Neely states:

English sonnet sequences reflect their descent from the sequences of Dante and Petrarch, they are not reproductions of their predecessors but reconstructions. They perfectly exemplify the renaissance doctrine of creative imitation. (384)  

Shakespeare’s Sonnet 147 is known to be part of the ‘Dark Lady Sonnets’ a collection consisting of Shakespeare’s sonnets 127 to 154. Unlike the sonnets that are known to refer to a young man, these sonnets are typically more dark and aggressive in their tone. They either refer directly to the Dark Lady, her relationship with the speaker or a love triangle that the two are caught up in. Over time there have been a number of potential candidates that critics have claimed to be Shakespeare’s Black Lady such as Aemilia Bassano, Lucy Negro, and more recently the wife of John Florio, Aline Florio (Jacobson). However, evidence is not proof and as Stephen Greenblatt stated: “It would be folly to take [the sonnets] as a kind of confidential diary, a straightforward record of what actually went on” (qutd. in Jacobson). Although the sonnets may have been partly inspired by Shakespeare's life, their main function is a dramatic one. 

Brief Outline of Sonnet 147:

Within sonnet 147, the narrator attacks the morality of his mistress and her sexual promiscuousness. He compares his love for her to fever that leads him to delusion. He deems himself, and is considered by a physician, to be beyond cure due to the fact he continues to long for the reason for his sickness. Abandoned by his physician, the poet yearns to understand why in spite of the judgment of reason he is still in love with her. Finally the narrator’s thoughts and words spiral into chaos like those of a madman’s. He deduces that he must be insane due to the fact he calls his mistress moral, when instead she a dark and sinful.

Traditionally, the Shakespearean form is constructed of three quatrains of alternate rhyme and an ending rhyming couplet, constituting fourteen lines. All of this is written in iambic pentameter, creating a natural rhythm that mirrors everyday speech. Sonnet 147 mostly abides by this, although its uncertainty manifests in its form. 

The first quatrain of a sonnet conventionally introduces a problem – in this case, the perception of desire as an incurable disease. The distressing nature of this problem is underpinned by the stressed ‘still’ and ‘disease’ at the end of the first lines; immediately presenting the sickness of desire as an unmoving and ultimate truth. In this quatrain as well, the form is first disrupted. The last two lines begin with trochaic feet, altering the lines’ metrical arrangement. Because of this change, line three ends with an unstressed ‘ill’, shifting the tone from the powerful, stressed ‘disease’ to a despondency. The melancholy of this detail highlights the hopelessness of the speaker’s state. Line four furthers the disturbance of the form with its hypercatalectic syllable, altering the rhythm of the line, quickening the pace, and hinting at an underlying urgency and anger. The emphasis then lies on ‘please’, supporting the view of desire (or the speaker’s object of desire) as sadistic and heartless, feeding happily on the vulnerable. 

The second quatrain of a Shakespearean sonnet traditionally develops the previous concern, here showing the manifestation of the disease – the loss of reason. Again, this quatrain further deconstructs the form with the second line starting with another trochee, ‘Angry’. The stressed beginning stands alone, not only accentuating the growing fury of the speaker, but also joining the previous trochaic feet to subtly break down the form. This disruption mirrors the speaker’s lack of rational thought, evidenced in the assertion that their ‘reason … Hath left [them]’. Using the form in this way, to uphold the sonnet’s conceit, allows Shakespeare to develop the idea outside of the language on the page and into a performative concept also. 

Usually, the third quatrain of a sonnet offers a solution to the problem developed in the earlier two, however, in Sonnet 147, there is no none. Instead, the speaker believes they are ‘Past cure’. Yet, this quatrain returns to regular iambic pentameter, disconnecting the content to the form. Instead of a breakdown of the metre, it remains constant, contrasting to the worsening of the disease. 

A volta is often brought along with the ending rhyming couplet, marking a turn in ideas. Although the volta does not dramatically turn to a more positive view of the situation, it does reveal for the first time a silent recipient, unmentioned until now. This allows the speaker to direct his anger at a subject, in a violent conclusion. Here, the pronouns directed at the anonymous subject – ‘thee’ and ‘who’ – are impolitely unstressed, displaying the speaker’s contempt for them. Additionally, each word of the couplet is a single syllable, providing individual sharp words, suggesting a sudden clarity in contrast to the previous stanzas. 

In this sonnet, the primary theme is that the love that the speaker feels is likened to a sickness. The reader gets this indication from the first line, when Shakespeare associates the love with a ‘fever’; this particular word gives the impression that the love is fiery due to the nature of a fever continually altering from hot to cold, and is therefore passionate and heated. Thus, we may infer that the speaker feels not only love, but also lust towards this woman.

Shakespeare continues to use words, associated with illness, such as ‘disease’, ‘ill’, ‘sickly’, ‘prescriptions’, ‘death’, and ‘cure’. While the initial word ‘fever’ gives the image of a heated relationship, these words are more negative and some make the love sound particularly unpleasant. For example, the vowel sounds in ‘disease’ elongate the word, possibly mirroring the long suffering that the speaker is enduring. Another example are the harsh consonants in ‘sickly’ giving the impression that the love is particularly painful to the speaker. All of these words help to reinforce the image of love as a painful and unpleasant illness.

Shakespeare uses personification when the speaker talks about his ‘reason, naming it as his ‘physician’ or his doctor of love. He is clearly internally conflicted as he does not follow his ‘physician’s’ advice or ‘prescriptions’, of staying away from his lover, but instead continues to love this woman and desires to die. However, his ‘physician’ or his reason will not allow him to do so and as he is not listening to reason, no longer cares about the situation that the speaker is in.

The speaker is restless and cannot think clearly because he is so overcome with this illness and the inner turmoil that accompanies it, shown when he says that he is ‘frantic-made with evermore unrest’. The speaker evidently thinks that he is in the wrong for continuing to love this woman and even states that he is mad, writing that ‘my thoughts and my discourse as madmen’s are’; he recognises that he is thinking and speaking in an absurd way because he should not love her. While we are unsure of specifically why he should not, he does state that he was mistaken in his opinion of her being ‘fair’ and ‘bright’ and instead says that she is ‘black as hell, as dark as night’. The chaotic nature of the speaker’s feelings are further reiterated through the use of the word ‘random’, implying that he feels destabilised by his feelings for this woman because it is not a secure and straightforward relationship. 

The two metaphors ‘black as hell’ and ‘dark as night’ both use harsh consonants at the end of the first words which serve to reinforce the image of the love for the woman being a sickness. These are the only images we have of the woman that the speaker references and she is presented as negative through the use of the harsh consonants; they imply that she is cold and even evil through the reference to hell. 

There are many internal rhymes within Sonnet 147, which alter the pace and create meaning in the poem. The pararhyme in the third quatrain, ‘cure’ and ‘care’ places a focus on the link between the concept of recovery and the abandonment of his reason. The rhyme between them is subtle yet noticeable when read aloud, therefore the two words are drawn together. The connection between them is central to the poem, as any hope of recovery is shattered in the speaker’s refusal to adhere to reason.

The slant rhyme in the second quatrain, ‘love’ and ‘approve’ mirrors the opposition between the speakers’ ‘physician’, or his reason, and his emotions towards his lover. Although reason dictates that he should give up his lover he does not obey and thus reason leaves him. This conflict between his mind and his heart is reinforced in the rhyme scheme as the word ‘love’ only half rhymes; thereby audibly illustrating the disparity between the two. The fact that it is the word ‘love’ which is a slant rhyme also suggests turbulence within the speaker’s experience of love itself; the word does not rhyme perfectly, just as love is not perfect.

In the third quatrain the speaker gives up hope of finding a cure for his disease and accepts his descent in to madness. The rhyme scheme in this quatrain consists of a masculine rhyme between ‘care’ and ‘are’ and a feminine rhyme between ‘unrest’ and ‘express’d.’ The use of the contrasting masculine and feminine rhyme mirrors the juxtaposition between the speaker and the female lover in this situation. The use of both masculine and feminine rhymes is only evident in the second and third quatrains, in which the speaker loses his ability to reason and describes his madness. The effect of this is that these quatrains are more disjointed and chaotic in structure; thus paralleling the speaker’s state of mind.

The final couplet is a perfect rhyme, and serves as a conclusion to the lament within the poem. The contrast in the connotations of each word in the couplet, ‘bright’ and ‘night’ highlights the complete disparity between the speaker’s impression of his lover, and the truth of her character. The assonance in ‘black’ and ‘dark’ further reinforces the image of the lover as sinister and manipulative. As the rhyming couplet is the volta within the poem, the tone is altered at this point. Until now the speaker has been describing the sickening result of his love; the couplet is the first time that the lover is directly addressed and accused of her immoral character. This leaves the reader with a darker insight in to the cause of the speaker’s torment. 

Works Cited
Jacobson, Howard. "Call off the search for the Dark Lady. Shakespeare isn't Shakespeare. And I'm not me." The Independent. The Independent News and Media Ltd. 11 Jan. 2013. Web. 19 April 2015.
Neely, Carol Thomas. "The Structure of English Renaissance Sonnet Sequences." ELH. 45.3 (1978): 359-389. JSTOR. Web. 19 April 2015.  

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As a group we decided to divide our analysis of the sonnet into four main areas: context; form and metre; language and diction, and rhyme. Emily wrote the introductory section on the sonnet’s context, Grace wrote the section on form and metre, Harriet wrote the section on language and diction, and the section on rhyme was written by Laura. We discussed and looked over each other's areas to make sure there was no overlap and the final blog covered all the points we wanted to raise.