Student Name

Dr. Anita Obermeier

ENG 200

28 February 2001

ãA Canker in a Fragrant Roseä: The Tension between Beauty and Virtue in Shakespeareâs ãSonnet 95ä

ãSonnet 95ä of Shakespeareâs ãblond young manä sonnets depicts a tension-filled variation on the classic blazon. The poet seems torn between the ãshameä (1) that taints his subject and the ãsweetsä (4) of the subjectâs beauty. The initial imagery of a ãcankerä (2) within a ãroseä (2) serves to set up the sexual overtones that dominate the poem, as well as to create the sense of strain between disapproval and attraction that heightens throughout each quatrain. Shakespeare develops this imagery to ensnare the subject in an increasingly agitated opposition between his physical beauty and his behavioral repulsiveness. Though the poet claims that he ãcannot dispraise but in a kind of praiseä (7), the closing couplet goes counter this, bringing the sense of antagonism between the poetâs admiration and his disapproval full circle. The couplet serves as a warning that the physical beauty and virility that have dominated the young manâs life will end, destroying the ãmansionä (9) where he hid his moral failing through the quatrains.

The opening quatrain of Sonnet 95 serves to expose the contrast between the young manâs physical and moral states. This quatrain, despite permitting the young manâs ãbeautyä (3) to dominate the sense of his ãsinsä (4), also begins to assert the idea that he will suffer for his vice. The opening image of ãHow sweet and lovelyä (1) dominates the completion of the thought ãdost thou make the shameä (1) through both rhythm and diction. While Shakespeare sets the opening in perfect iambic rhythm, the insertion of a pyrrhic foot to begin the statement of the young manâs ãshameä (1) weakens the idea, allowing the sense of the young manâs physical loveliness to dominate.

However, the imagery surrounding the young manâs beauty also implies its corrupting influence.Ê The use of the word ãcankerä (2), while singularly appropriate to the plant image of a ãroseä (2), also implies both a corrupting influence and the possibility of sores resulting from venereal disease. Though canker sores are generally associated with the mouth, connecting a canker to a rose plays upon the sexuality generally associated with flower imagery. In keeping with the understatement of the vice in the first quatrain, Shakespeare limits the idea of consequences to this one, nearly imperceptible, image. The closing of the first quatrain again emphasizes the ãsweetsä of the young manâs physical perfection, adding weight to the thought with an initial trochee. However, Shakespeare here begins to emphasize the consequences of the young manâs behavior, with the idea that he does his ãsins encloseä (4), offering the idea he has bound his vices to himself, trapping himself within them.ÊÊ

The second quatrain develops the poetâs tension from facing the dilemma of being ãthat tongue that tells the storyä (5) of the subject of the poem. This quatrain presents the idea of the young manâs beauty as a fa�ade. Though Shakespeare feels inspired to make ãlasciviousä (6) comment on the young manâs ãsportä (6), implying the lecherous nature of the young man and his (probably many) sexual encounters. However, in spite of opening this particular quatrain with implications of the lewd nature of the young man, Shakespeare himself, trying to relate the young manâs tale, is influenced by the young manâs beauty. The repetition in lines 7-8, ãdispraise in a kind of praise,ä and ãnaming thy nameä gives a sense of hesitance to the quatrain, presumably bred of Shakespeareâs inability to commit himself to relating this tale objectively. However, in closing with the idea that the young manâs name ãblesses an ill reportä (8), Shakespeare commits himself to the idea that, though the subjectâs physical countenance may beautify the presentation, the nature of the report is still ãillä (8) and therefore inherently not healthy and not normal.

Having created such a clear tension in the first and second quatrains, Shakespeare begins to exploit and resolve it in the third. This quatrain manipulates the previous arguments through the closeness of antipodal images, the personification of vice, and intense rhythmical variation. The opening two lines of this quatrain, both beginning with trochee, call attention to the idea of ãthose vicesä (9) that afflict the young men having consciously chosen the ãmansionä (9) of his beauty. This personification of vice as an independent force attaching itself to this young man implies a sort of helplessness on the part of the young man as an unwitting servant of his lascivious nature. The second, spondaic foot in line 10 places an unexpected emphasis on ãtheirä habitation, adding force to the idea of the vices as a dominant force upon the young man.

The imagery that closes this quatrain emphasizes the shallowness of ãbeautyâs veilä (11). The diametric opposition between ãbeautyä and ãblotä (11), which are so close to one another in the poem, offers a sense of the thinness of the ability of beautyâs ability to cover the stains on the young manâs history and character. This thought is furthered in the final line of the quatrain, in which ãall things turn to fair that eyes can seeä (12). Though this thought initially seems positive, focusing upon the ãfairä (12) nature of that which is seen about the young man, the limiting ãthat eyes can seeä (12) implies the incomplete, vain nature of the young manâs fairness, implying that that which is not beheld with the eyes will not ãturn to fairä (12). The perfect iambic pentameter of these two lines (11-12) serves to give them the force of truth, making them easily acceptable while presenting highly complex and contradictory images.

The closing couplet works as the culmination of both the initial sexual imagery and as the judgment of the young manâs overriding physical qualities. The warning to ãtake heedä (13) serves to force the idea that there is a danger in the previously stated opposition. However, the phallic imagery of the ãlarge privilegeä (11) of which the young man should be aware helps to complete the poemâs consideration of physical beauty in place of virtue by drawing the poem back to the sexual overtones set up in the beginning. The warning that ãthe hardest knife ill-used doth lose his edgeä (12) forces the idea that age leads to physical impotence, thereby leaving physical beauty the transient domain of the young, and virtue the permanent domain of all.

Work Cited

The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Eds. M. H. Abrams and Stephen Greenblatt.

ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ 7^th ed. 2 vols. New York: Norton, 2000. 1:1041-42.

Works Consulted

"canker, n." Oxford English Dictionary. Ed. J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner. 2nd ed.

Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989.