18 pages • 36 minutes read
William ShakespeareSonnet 138: When my love swears that she is made of truth
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1599A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Form and Meter
“Sonnet 138” is an English sonnet, and more specifically, a Shakespearean sonnet. Most sonnets, in both English and Italian, have 14 lines. However, the rhyme scheme differs in Italian and English sonnets. Shakespeare uses the rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG in this and most of his other sonnets. The ending couplet (the final two lines that rhyme with one another) makes an English sonnet stand out from an Italian sonnet. Overall, Shakespearean sonnets have four sections: three quatrains (groups of four lines) and one couplet.
Italian sonnets, which are the predecessors of English sonnets, have an octave and a sestet. An octave is two quatrains, and the sestet is a group of six lines. The rhyme scheme of the Italian octave is ABBA ABBA. The rhyme scheme of the sestet can be CDE CDE or CDC DCD. Petrarch made the Italian sonnet popular a couple hundred years before Shakespeare wrote his sonnets. While Petrarch’s sonnets have a cruel mistress who rejects her lover, Shakespeare’s sonnets include a Dark Lady who is intimate with the speaker. In “Sonnet 138,” this is described with the words “I lie with her and she with me” (Line 13). Here, the speaker insinuates, through his pun on the word “lie,” that he has sex with his beloved. This sexual consummation, like Shakespeare’s use of the final rhyming couplet, stands in contrast to the distant Petrarchan beloved.
Shakespeare’s sonnets use iambic pentameter. This is five metric feet, or 10 syllables per line, alternating between unstressed and stressed syllables. For instance, “Unlearnèd in the world’s false subtleties” (Line 4). This scansion demonstrates some of the flexible characteristics of the English language as used by Shakespeare. “Unlearnèd” is three syllables rather than two, despite the earlier use of “untutored” (Line 3) without the accented conjugation (the ending of -ed rather than -èd). The use of the two different stresses within two synonyms of uneducated paradoxically demonstrates the author’s education and mastery of meter. Furthermore, the end of the line, “subtleties,” is a visual rather than audible rhyme. Reading and scanning the poem forces it to be pronounced tīz rather than tiz (in the International Phonetic Alphabet) in order to rhyme with “lies” (Line 2).
Repetition
Shakespeare brings the reader’s attention to specific words by using repetition in “Sonnet 138.” His most repeated word is “love.” The example of love demonstrates how a single word can have many uses and meanings. It is repeated four times—once in Lines 1 and 11, and twice in Line 12. The repetition includes using the word “love” as different parts of speech, such as a noun and a verb. This means love can refer to a person (“my love” [Line 1]) and a state of being (“age in love loves not to have years told” [Line 12]). Shakespeare also attributes the human characteristic of love and loving to the concept of “age” in Line 12, a device called personification. “Love” can be interpreted as personified in Line 11 as well (“Oh, love’s best habit is in seeming trust”), as this use of “love” is ambiguous in whether it refers to the speaker’s beloved or to the idea of love itself.
Another word that is frequently repeated in “Sonnet 138” is the word “lie.” It is repeated three times, in Lines 2, 13, and 14. Furthermore, the repetition of “lie” draws attention to how it is enclosed within the word “believe” in Line 2. The multiple meanings of “lie” are at the heart of the poem. It refers to flattery and white lies about age, which the speaker wants to believe, and will convince him to become intimate with his “love” (Line 1)—to “lie with her” (Line 13).
The sonnet contains several iterations of other words. “Think” is repeated three times. Thinking is used as a synonym of belief, building upon the idea of believing lies. However, “think” can be contrasted with “lie”—thinking is an internal state, while lying is a spoken or physical interaction with another person. Words that are repeated twice include “know,” “best,” and “truth.” Appearing in Lines 2 and 6, “know” is connected with “believe” and “think”—these words are all related to cognition and understanding. “Know” applies to both the speaker and his beloved, showing how words that are repeated twice indicate duality or doubling, perhaps suggesting the duplicity they know they are both engaging in.
Related Titles
By William Shakespeare
