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

Midlife Crisis in William Shakespeares Sonnet 138William Shakespeares Sonnet 138 presents an ageing cosmoss rationalization for deceit in an affair with a younger woman. The speaker 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 do of truth / I do believe her though I cheat she lies, / That she might think me some untutored youth (1-3). Sonnet 138 allows the referee a glimpse into the speakers mind, and what one finds is a man suffering from what is commonly known as a midlife crisis. In an trend to reverse the downslope sic of age (Kermode Millions), he takes part 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 indite in the first-person voice in iambic pentameter. According to Leslie Dunton-Downer and Alan Riding, iambic pentameter produces sensations of ease (45). In this particular sonnet, though the speaker and his mistress lie to separately other, they both find comfort, in the form of sexual gratification, from the affair thereof I lie with her and she with me, / And in our faults by lies we flattered be (13-4). The sonnet has triple parts the first twain quatrains, the last quatrain, and the couplet. The first two quatrains show up two distinct, yet 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 P ark Pennsylvania nation 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 import in Shakespeares Sonnets. Shakespeares Sonnets Critical Essays. Ed. James Schiffer. New York Garland, 1999. 431-52.Websters New World Dictionary of the English Language. 2nd ed. 1970.Willen, Gerald and Victor B. Reed, eds. A Casebook on Shakespeares Sonnets. New York Crowell, 1964.