Midlife Crisis in William Shakespeares Sonnet 138 Essay -- William sh

Midlife Crisis in William Shakespeares Sonnet 138William Shakespeares Sonnet 138 presents an aging mans rationalization for deceit in an affair with a younger woman. The vocalizer of the sonnet realizes his mistress lies to him about being faithful. He in turn, portrays himself as younger than he actually is When my love swears that she is made of truth / I do believe her though I know she lies, / That she might think me some untutored youth (1-3). Sonnet 138 allows the reader a glimpse into the talkers mind, and what one finds is a man suffering from what is commonly known as a midlife crisis. In an effort to reverse the downslope sic of age (Kermode Millions), he takes federal agency in a duplicitous affair with a promiscuous woman possibly in her early twenties (Hubler 107). Three main themes permeate the speakers tissue of rationalization throughout the sonnet (Moore Shakespeares) dishonesty, aging, and lust.Sonnet 138 is written in the first-person voice in iambic pentame ter. According to Leslie Dunton-Downer and Alan Riding, iambic pentameter produces sensations of shelter (45). In this particular sonnet, though the speaker and his mistress lie to each other, they both find comfort, in the form of sexual gratification, from the affair Therefore I lie with her and she with me, / And in our faults by lies we flattered be (13-4). The sonnet has three parts the first two quatrains, the last quatrain, and the couplet. The first two quatrains express two distinct, moreover complementary ideas (Dunton-Downer and Riding 461). In Sonnet 138, the two ideas are the speaker and his mistress individual deceits and their mutual deceits (1-8). The last quatrain is signaled by the word But (9).... ...ed. Shakespeares Sonnets Critical Essays. New York Garland, 1999.Shakespeare, William. Sonnet 138. Shakespeares Sonnets. Eds. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. New York Washington Square, 2004.Smith, Gordon Ross, ed. Essays on Shakespeare. University Park Pennsylvania State UP, 1965.Swisher, Clarice, ed. Readings on the Sonnets of William Shakespeare. San Diego Greenhaven, 1997.Traversi, D. A. An Approach to Shakespeare. Garden city Doubleday, 1956.Traub, Valerie. Sex without Issue Sodomy, Reproduction, and Signification in Shakespeares Sonnets. Shakespeares Sonnets Critical Essays. Ed. James Schiffer. New York Garland, 1999. 431-52.Websters New World Dictionary of the English Language. second ed. 1970.Willen, Gerald and Victor B. Reed, eds. A Casebook on Shakespeares Sonnets. New York Crowell, 1964.