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Illusion, Empathy and the Lover in Shakespeares Sonnets and Venus and
Adonis

The second segment of Shakespeares sonnet sequence, addressing the so-called Dark
Lady, is noticeably marked by dissonance. The poet makes no pretensions of subtlety as he
foregrounds the disparity between what is perceived, and what truly isthat is to say, he laments
the mistress deceptive charm in the light (or more appropriately, shadow) of her physical
coarseness, and her cruel and perverse inclinations. Perception is of course not one-dimensional,
as the poet compares his own conflicted and fractured knowledge of the womans character with
societys uncharitable but more accurate vision of her flawed nature, knowing there are overlaps
which are further complicated by his willful ignorance and debilitating desire. Writers like Joel
Fineman (in Shakespeares Perjured Eye) have emphasized on the emergence of subjectivity
through an awareness of competing truths in these Dark Lady sonnets, but critics have also gone
on to recognize that such a play of illusions and the onslaught of tormenting possibilities take
place in equal measure, if not with greater complexity, in the first hundred and twenty six
sonnets dedicated to the presumably male, fair friend (Sonnet 104, l. 1)
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. Colin Burrow in his
Oxford edition of Shakespeares Complete Sonnets and Poems, writes:
The poems which praise the young man painfully do not, as Fineman would have
them, identify the lover with his object and deny difference Rather they bring
about a dramatic interaction between what is said in praise of the young man and
the events which seem to surround what is said.
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In fact, sonnet 94 is a fine example of Shakespeares none too simple intention as it is
expressed through the Fair friend sonnets. In all likelihood, the poet has someone in mind when
he speaks indirectly of those that have the powr to hurt and will do none, and the sonnets
position in the first segment of the sequence, suggests that the type of person described is
modelled on the beloved dedicatee himself. This idea receives further support from the poets
past confessions of vulnerability in the context of his love for his friend. [W]ill do none may
then offer the poet relief from potential hurt, but set against a history of unequal affection, it
inevitably seems tinged with resentment at passivity. When the poet says that the people in
question do not do the thing they most do show, he furthers the sense of unequal power that
emerges at the poems very beginning. Thus, we cannot trust him to be entirely sincere when he
says that these austere individuals rightly do inherit heavens graces. Such a declaration turns
out to be all the more dubious when the possibly injured lover turns advisor and voices a most

1
William Shakespeare, The Sonnets, ed. G. Blakemore Evans (New Delhi: Cambridge University Press India, 2008),
p. 84. [All subsequent and direct citations from the sonnets refer to this edition.]
2
The Oxford Shakespeare: Complete Sonnets and Poems, ed. Colin Burrow (New York: Oxford University Press,
2002), p. 135.
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sinister warning about corrupted goodness in those who remain cold and self-absorbed: For
sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds; / Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.
My intention in expounding upon contradictions in these sonnets is to lay a textual
foundation for discussing a significant absence in their discourse of lovethat of empathy. If
empathy is to be taken as something beyond the purely imaginary, something involving but also
transcending the projection of ones own self onto the beloveds mind, then the spontaneous flow
of receptivity that it would demand can only be impeded by the poets acute consciousness of
difference and deception. Thus, even when the poems hint at an intuitive understanding of the
others feelings, they are troubled by the awareness of unreliability in the avowal and
performance of love.
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These moments of half-fulfilled sympathetic understanding are drastically fewer in the
Dark Lady sequence, but we may take up Sonnet 138 for discussion in this regard. Here, the poet
presents a picture of contentment in a love which relies on the mutual acceptance of each others
dishonesty. The poet speaks of himself as aged, a fact which he gladly denies both to himself and
to his mistress in pretending to be naively unsuspecting of her falsehoods. He writes, When my
love swears that she is made of truth, / I do believe her, though I know she lies. Conversely, she
allows the poet his pretences so that her lies may go unchallenged, although she knows his days
are past the best. This age does not come only from advanced years but also from experience
with deceit, and I would argue that a peaceful maturity does not necessarily follow. Images of
falsity dominate the rhetoric, and the seeming trust which is elevated to the rank of loves best
habit lends little more than a superficial comfort. The mistress thinks vainly, the poet-lover
lies simply, and together the two are flattered. The action is too self-conscious, the phrasing
too glib for proper emotional fulfillment, and it seems less a case of empathy than self-comfort
parading as worldly wisdom.
The idea of redeeming flattery appears even more unconvincingly in sonnet 42, part of
the Fair Friend sequence. This poem is built around a milder version of the drama which takes
place in sonnet 144in both, the poets male and female beloveds commit the ultimate betrayal
by coming together as lovers. Through the course of sonnet 42, the poet makes multiple
clarifications: that he is hurt more by the loss of the male friend, that he is aware the two
offenders love each other only for his sake, that their gain is both his loss and gain. Though the
poet gives the impression of understanding the intention behind the transgression, it is
distressingly apparent that the he needs to read goodness into his beloveds motives so as not to
be utterly devastated by the simpler truth. The excess of interpretation in his response indicates
discontent, which the volta attempts to alleviateBut heres the joy, my friend and I are one. /
Sweet flattery! then she loves but me alone. This abrupt turn is acknowledged as trickery, and

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There is the obvious factor that these sonnets have no scope for conveying the voice of the beloved, and the total
dependence on the poet is the foremost threat to empathy. However, my point is that the poet thwarts himself
from presenting such a moment of pure harmony or confluence even in his own voice. I also wish to clarify that I in
no way consider this a poetic demerit.
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the idea of oneness through perfect accord sits uncomfortably on such a strained and restless
series of claims. The couplet also creates some ambiguity about the reason for gratification,
which may be unison in friendship, or the pleasure of being loved exclusively. Either scenario
however, is an instance of wish-fulfillment.
Sonnet 88 too involves a breach of faith by the friend which the poet himself legitimizes.
Significantly, this occasion is foreseen rather than reported, the speculative when betraying an
anxiety from the very start. The poet suspects that if he were abandoned, his beloved would cite
the poets deficiencies as an excuse for his negligence. Under such circumstances, the poet is
prepared to wage war against himself on his friends side. Knowing his own weakness best, the
poet could do so much to slur his own name, that the fair friends diminished loyalty would come
across not only as comprehensible but virtuous. This however, is hardly based on an empathetic
understanding of the friends mind, for the poet intends to draw upon his superior knowledge of
himself to create a convincing narrativein his own words, set down a story. If the sense of
skill on his part is subdued here, the idea of achievement and profit comes through explicitly
(That thou in losing me shall win much glory; / And I by this will be a gainer too Doing thee
vantage, double vantage me.) Moreover, even if his self-admonition is grounded in factual
details, the poet is aware of doing an injustice to himself, for he closes the sonnet with the line
That for thy right myself will bear all wrong. The violence latent in such self-injury rises to the
surface in the last line of sonnet 89, which deals with a similar themeFor I must neer love
him who thou dost hate. The use of the imperative and the polarities of love and hate emphasize
the tension between the fervour of the intended decision and the anticipation of self-imposed
pain.
Sonnet 120 is a very interesting follow up to the preceding examples, for in a role
reversal, the poet here is himself guilty of faithlessness and reflects on the import of his actions.
It would appear that the reality of shared experience has brought the poet closer to the beloveds
mind than any surmise or noble intention he had previously aired. Nonetheless, the situation
raises certain challenges to the perfect meeting of two minds. For one, the poet has been forced
by his error to revise his notions of moral judgement on a fundamental level. His insight is
largely unwanted, having come at a heavy cost, and with none of the serenity that would
accompany an unprompted intuitive revelation. In addition, as Burrow points out
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, we are not
sure of the beloveds response to this altered state of things, and an element of conjecture lurks in
the words- For if you were by my unkindness shaken / As I by yours, yhave passed a hell of
time. Most importantly, as always, the poet is acutely conscious of shifting power relations and
the moral currency and usability of his situation. He sees here an opportunity for forgiveness,
and does not refrain from making his demand in the hardest economic termsBut that your
tresspass now becomes a fee; / Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me. Once again,
personal advantage intrudes into the domain of emotional identification with the beloved.

4
Complete Sonnets and Poems, p. 36
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There are a number of other sonnets, a discussion of which would add substance and
variety to this argument but due to the constraints of space, I would now like to turn to another
work which offers fresh points of similarity and departure. Venus and Adonis, Shakespeares first
published work and a huge success in its time has been lauded as a dazzling if slightly flashy
display of rhetorical brilliance, erotically charged and effectively comic as well as poignant; but
its sophistication is believed to lie mainly in the sphere of verbal feats rather than thematic or
philosophical concerns.
Without going into the question of true artistic refinement, the narrative form and play of
voices in Venus and Adonis offers some distinct insights in the context of our discussion on the
lovers empathy in Shakespeares poetry. In terms of situation and character, Venus employs far
more agency and energy than the poet-lover of the sonnets, but in this epyllion, we are also given
glimpses of active and even successful resistance against the goddess by Adonis. The dialogue
form prevents Venus from occupying a position of unquestioned authority, but it sets the conflict
between divergent points of view in sharper relief. Moreover, contradictions in content cannot be
attributed to the discrete containment of meaning within individual poems. Therefore it soon
becomes apparent that Venus is driven in her argument by desire and urgency rather than a
dedication to truth, and that she employs whatever rhetoric is convenient for the seduction of
Adonis. To give a logical basis to her desire, she holds forth on the propriety of yielding to her
unparalleled beauty, the right to be rescued from her pitiable plight, the natural instinct of living
beings to couple and procreate, the necessity of exploiting ones youth.
Indeed, though we are tempted to concede the authenticity of all that the goddess of love
may say on love itself, and though her eloquence does sound persuasive, we simultaneously
witness her in a state of confusion, driven frantic by unfulfilled desire and strategizing her moves
even while succumbing intermittently to spontaneous displays of passion. Just as there is an
ambiguity about how much of her vulnerability is genuine and how much of it belongs to her
motivated rhetoric, on other occasions it becomes difficult to tell whether Venus is simply
describing with a higher awareness how nature is kind to Adonis, or if she is projecting her own
feelings onto the surrounding environment, giving the impression of an animistic landscape in
love with Adonis. When she mourns over the boys death, she contrasts the boars unfair
brutality with the tender flirtations that the sun, wind and even wild animals like the lion would
carry on with Adonis. It seems that Venus is speaking from a position of knowledge here, but
when soon after she convinces herself that the boar must have attempted to kiss Adonis, it
becomes apparent that she wishes to infuse the world with her own intemperate love for him.
Yet, though she herself is apprehensive of the delusions of a love-struck mind, she correctly
predicts the fatal conclusions of Adonis encounter with the boar
This carry-tale, dissentious Jealousy,
That sometime true news, sometime false doth bring,
Knocks at my heart, and whispers in mine ear
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That if I love thee, I thy death should fear.
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(ll. 657-60)

The poem contains numerous other instances where the words of Venus show a peculiar blend of
prescience, self-awareness, denial, anxiety, hope and imagination. Without exploring the
individual occurrences, we may observe that Venus and Adonis too is a text riddled with
discrepancies stemming from the disorienting nature of desire and the almost total lack of
cooperation between Venus and Adonis.
In this milieu, there lies what I believe to be a startling and unadulterated moment of
empathy on the part of Venus, and the object of this empathy is not Adonis but poor Wat (l.
697), the hare she encourages him to hunt as a safe alternative to the vicious boar. Along with the
rabbit, she lists the fox and the roe as acceptable opponents but then proceeds to a largely
unnecessary digression charting the terrified flight of the hunted hare from its pursuers. If
convincing Adonis to hate the hunting of the boar (l. 711) is her intention, it would have been
enough simply to state how the rabbit is defenceless and incapable of any aggression. However,
she gives a heart-rending portrayal of the hares desperate and failing attempts at escape,
culminating in the image of a dew-bedabbled wretch (l. 703) carrying on with his last ounce of
strength, his every movement a torture, and each new sight a deaths head to his sickened soul.
This perusal of the harrowed hares condition is even more curious when one takes into
account the depiction of Venus as a bird of prey swooping upon the young Adonis. The empathy
she has for the animal whose misfortune she encourages is not quite available to the object of her
love, whose well-being she nonetheless has in mind when she advises him to hunt the hare.
Though I have not arrived a satisfactory explanation for this digression (and a digression it is, for
afterwards she asks Where did I leave? [l. 715]), it appears that the world of Venus and Adonis
is seething with a multiplicity of desires, aspirations and fears, which despite their vibrancy have
a tendency towards the tragic. In such a setting, any location and moment in time may provide
the scene for a new conflict of desires and actions, often brutal in their primal energy and leading
inescapably to thwarted hopes. Venus, for all her self-absorption is not impervious to these
forces, and perhaps in her heightened state of sensitivity, is uncannily responsive towards them.
The sonnets too are fed by the protean and self-sustaining forces of desire, and their
narrative is fringed by half-told stories through the potential situations they conjure, but the
wider array of active characters in Venus and Adonis allow for a more dramatic vocalization of
emotions. It has already been mentioned that Venus projects her own desire onto the surrounding
landscape, and imagines the response of nature and celestial beings to the beauty of Adonis. One
such occasion is where she speaks of Cynthias shame at being outshone by Adonis, to account

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Complete Sonnets and Poems, p. 210. [Further quotations from Venus and Adonis refer to this edition.]
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for the nights darkness
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. However, earlier in the poem, the third-person narrator informs us with
no ostensible irony that
Titan, tired in the mid-day heat,
With burning eye did hotly overlook them;
Wishing Adonis had his team to guide,
So he were like him and by Venus side. (ll. 177-80)

That Venus seems unaware of this is perhaps no more or less surprising than her sudden,
intensely sympathetic vision of the hares plight.

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Complete Sonnets and Poems, p. 214.

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