Lust and the Degeneration of Man Exposed in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 129 Es

Lust and the Degeneration of Man Exposed in Shakespeares 129th Sonnet Love in its purest form is the most unsurpassable of in all emotions, requiring intense commitment, while simultaneously providing incomparable bliss. However, often the intense desire for these feelings produces a new emotion, lust, with a craving that gives priority to obtaining an objectified person, as opposed to a very real human. Lust can be further practically defined as the inability to place selfless love on a higher pedestal than selfish desire. Shakespeare explores these conflicting definitions of lust in his 129th sonnet, condemning his animalistic variations of lust that coexist with his desire for a genuine state of love. As opposed to following the traditional convention of idealizing a woman and her attributes, Shakespeare breaks the concordance and focuses on the dehumanizing effect of the womans attributes on his character. The general trend in this sonnet is the speakers analysis of the mental methods through which he has admired a woman. He attempts to craftily define lust so as to rationalize his actions to be correct. However, he gradually gains the knowledge that the lust he has felt is sacrilegious, and must cease. Sonnet 129 opens as the speaker is in great sorrow due to the shallow quality that has permeated his love. He feels as though he has been exhausted of his physical, mental, and moral strength in his pursuit for mutual love. An expense of enliven in a waste of shame is the mark of an ill-fated desire that has missed its point of satisfaction, lost in a deep cavern of an inevitable nature. When humans fall into such depths of despair, it is quite natural to fall back into the animalistic undertones that creep ste... ...9). kit and caboodle CitedFineman, Joel. Shakespeares Perjured Eye The Invention of Poetic Subjectivity in the Sonnets. Berkeley, U of California P, 1988.Leisham, Stephen. The Riddle of Shakespeares Sonnets. New York Basic Books, 1982. Landry, Scott. ed. A Companion to Shakespeare. Oxford Blackwell, 2001. Martin, Philip. Shakespeares Sonnets Self, Love and Art. Cambridge Cambridge UP, 1972.Shakespeare, William. Shakespeares Sonnets. Ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Cambridge Cambridge UP, 1996.Vendler, Helen. The Art of Shakespeares Sonnets. Cambridge, MA, and London Harvard UP, 1999. Winny, James. The Master-Mistress A Study of Shakespeares Sonnets. London Chatto and Windus, 1968.Works ConsultedFiedler, Leslie A. Some Contexts of Shakespeares Sonnets. The Riddle of Shakespeares Sonnets. London Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962.