Rukhaya M.K

“Sonnet 131” was first published in a 1609 quarto edition entitled Shakespeare’s Sonnets. It belongs to the sequence of the Dark Lady sonnets (127–52). The speaker affirms that the Dark Lady is a typical ‘femme fatale’ and her menacing charm haunts the presence of men and threatens the existence of women. ’Art’ is utilized as a pun here in that it refers to ‘are’ in Shakespearean language and ‘art’ with reference to her art of ensnaring others in her charm. She is also tyrannous in her aggressive seductive powers that imposes more upon than it allures. The poet employs a Petrarchan conceit here to allude to the “power the object’s beauty imposes over the sonneteer and argues for her beauty based on the power she exerts over him.”(Duncan-Jones 2007, 131.13).Her existence is as intimidating as the beauty of others, though she is not beautiful in a conventional manner. She was much of a tormenter as those who tormented others through the exquisite charm of their beauty. She realizes that the speaker dotes on her and takes advantage of the fact by causing him distress with impunity. The lines are reminiscent of the ones in “Sonnet 144” where Man is presented as a ‘better angel’ and the Woman as an ‘evil spirit’. G. Blakemore Evans points out in his edition of the Sonnets: “Shakespeare here is clearly thinking in terms of the morality play or psychomachia tradition, in which Mankind, as the central character, is subjected to the promptings of personified Virtues and Vices, a tradition that received its most famous development in Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus ,in which a ‘Good Angel’ and an ‘Evil Angel’ try to influence Faustus’s thought and action” (262).

Shakespeare in this sonnet endeavours to give shape to their asymmetrical relationship. The speaker makes evident that the lady was not endowed with the traditional attributes of being attractive, yet one succumbed to her enigmatic aura. The speaker dotes on her unconditionally, and realizes that she is his most prized possession. He disagrees to those who profess that her beauty does not have what it takes to make an aficionada(admirer) groan with awe or desire. Nevertheless, the poet refrained from declaring this publicly. He swears to himself that he was right and the others were wrong. But he does not dare to be politically incorrect in front of the others. And to prove that he was right, he groaned a thousand times as he just recalled her face.

The speaker utilizes the word “groan”, “another common practice from Petrarch, to superficially reinforce the lover’s depth of emotion; but it does so ambivalently, possibly implying the word’s connotation of pain or distress, or even its alternate meaning that refers tovenereal disease.”( Duncan-Jones 2007, 131.13 ). With reference to “Sonnet 144”,many critics interpret the line “Till my bad angel fire my good one out” (14) to be a direct reference to a sexually transmitted disease.

It may also signify the act of groaning with sexual desire. In an oxymoron, the poet asserts that her black is fairest. For him, her dusky complexion was the quintessence of unique beauty. The ’darkness’ here may also refer to the enigma and depth of her beauty. There is nothing negative regarding her exterior appearance; the only flaw lay in her deeds. The former declarations of praise for the Dark Lady are nullified with this statement. As with “Sonnet 130”,the poet light-heartedly mocks at the existing Petrarchan tradition as adopted by Philip Sidney in his Astrophel and Stella. Frank Harris in his influential biography The Man Shakespeare asserts that “the Dark Lady had ruined Shakespeare’s life, and “he died broken- hearted for the love of the Dark Lady”. In “Sonnet 151”, the poet confesses that it is impossible to take the relationship forward as it betrays his “nobler part” (6) or his soul, and Sonnet 152 marks the end of the affair.”

The poet attributes this negative quality of hers as a reason for the prevailing slander. The tribute is a pragmatic one verging on realistic details of this “raven-haired seducer”. In such a stance, he cannot shield her dark deeds, but only her dark beauty.

© Rukhaya MK 2012

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