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Shakespeare's Sonnets

Author	William Shakespeare
Language	Early Modern English
Genre	Renaissance poetry
Publisher	Thomas Thorpe
Publication date	1609
Publication place	England

Sonnet 72 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It's a member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet expresses his love toward a young man. The Fair Youth Sequence includes Sonnet 1 through Sonnet 126.

Synopsis

Sonnet 72 is an extension of Sonnet 71. In it The Poet wrestles with feelings of inadequacy and mortality, specifically how his works will live on after his own death. The Poet addresses a young male lover. Throughout, The Poet urges him to forget their love and his works upon The Poet's death.

«» Sonnet 72
O! lest the world should task you to recite What merit lived in me, that you should love After my death,--dear love, forget me quite, For you in me can nothing worthy prove. Unless you would devise some virtuous lie, To do more for me than mine own desert, And hang more praise upon deceased I Than niggard truth would willingly impart: O! lest your true love may seem false in this That you for love speak well of me untrue, My name be buried where my body is, And live no more to shame nor me nor you. For I am shamed by that which I bring forth, And so should you, to love things nothing worth.
Q1 Q2 Q3 C 4 8 12 14 —William Shakespeare

Context

Sonnet 71 through Sonnet 74 are often grouped together as a linear sequence due to their dark, brooding tone, and The Poet's obsession with his own mortality and legacy. The sequence begins in Sonnet 71 with "No longer mourn for me when I am dead" and ends with "And that is this, and this with thee remains" in Sonnet 74.

Analysis

Sonnet 72 is a continuation from Sonnet 71. Both Sonnets are an anticipatory plea regarding death and the afterlife from the writer to the reader. Quatrains 1 and 3 read:

O! lest the world should task you to recite
What merit lived in me, that you should love
After my death,--dear love, forget me quite,
For you in me can nothing worthy prove.

O! lest your true love may seem false in this
That you for love speak well of me untrue,
My name be buried where my body is,
And live no more to shame nor me nor you.

A modern translation reads:

O, in case they demand to know why you loved me, just forget me
when I die. You can’t find virtue in me unless you overpraise.

O, in case your love should lead you into untruth, forget me rather than
live on to shame us, me for what I produce, you for loving rubbish

The overarching subject of Sonnet 72 is the Poet's fixation with how he will be remembered after death. Subsequently the tone remains bleak and self depreciating.

Theme

In the sonnets we may read the poets intents, hopes, and fears regarding his fate, and we learn of his all consuming desire for immortality...Bodily death he does not fear: oblivion he dreads.”- John Cumming Walters, Mystery of Shakespeare's Sonnets

In Line 2 The Poet discusses his own mortality and worth by asking "what merit lived in me that you should love". Keeping with his theme of death, The Poet employs the use of morbid imagery in Line 7: "And hang more praise upon deceased I". This is a reference to the practice of the time of hanging Epitaphs/Trophies on the gravestone or marker of the deceased. Line 10 states "that you for love speak well of me untrue". Here The Poet is stating if his young lover were to speak well of him after death, he would be lying. The last couplet of the sonnet alludes that a dead poet is worthless, or has no value.

For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,
And so should you, to love things nothing worth.

Poetic Structure

Sonnet 72 follows the typical Sonnet rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg. There are 14 lines in the poem, 12 stanzas followed by 2 lines in the couplet.

v t e William Shakespeare
Plays	Comedies All's Well That Ends Well As You Like It The Comedy of Errors Cymbeline Love's Labour's Lost Measure for Measure The Merchant of Venice The Merry Wives of Windsor A Midsummer Night's Dream Much Ado About Nothing Pericles, Prince of Tyre ✻ The Taming of the Shrew The Tempest Twelfth Night The Two Gentlemen of Verona The Two Noble Kinsmen ✻ The Winter's Tale Tragedies Antony and Cleopatra Coriolanus Hamlet Julius Caesar King Lear Macbeth Othello Romeo and Juliet Timon of Athens Titus Andronicus Troilus and Cressida Histories King John Edward III ✻ Richard II Henry IV 1 2 Henry V Henry VI 1 ✻ 2 3 Richard III Henry VIII ✻ Early editions Quarto publications First Folio Second Folio Related Problem plays Late romances Henriad Characters A–K L–Z Ghost character Chronology Performances Settings Scenes
Poems	Shakespeare's sonnets comparison to Petrarch A Lover's Complaint The Phoenix and the Turtle The Rape of Lucrece Venus and Adonis
Apocrypha	Plays Arden of Faversham The Birth of Merlin Cardenio ✻† Double Falsehood Edmund Ironside Fair Em Locrine The London Prodigal Love's Labour's Won † The Merry Devil of Edmonton Mucedorus The Puritan The Second Maiden's Tragedy Sejanus His Fall Sir John Oldcastle Sir Thomas More ✻ The Spanish Tragedy Thomas Lord Cromwell Thomas of Woodstock Ur-Hamlet † Vortigern and Rowena A Yorkshire Tragedy Poems The Passionate Pilgrim To the Queen
Life and works	Birthplace Bibliography Complete Works Translations Coat of arms Collaborations Editors English Renaissance theatre Globe Theatre Handwriting Lord Chamberlain's Men/King's Men The Theatre Curtain Theatre Music New Place Portraits Religious views Sexuality Spelling of his name Stratford-upon-Avon Style Will Grave
Legacy	Attribution studies Authorship question Bardolatry Festivals Gardens Influence Memorials Screen adaptations Shakespeare and Star Trek Shakespeare's influence on Tolkien Works titled after Shakespeare Institutions Folger Shakespeare Library Shakespeare Quarterly Royal Shakespeare Company Royal Shakespeare Theatre Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Shakespeare's Globe (replica) Shakespeare Institute
Family	Anne Hathaway (wife) Susanna Hall (daughter) Hamnet Shakespeare (son) Judith Quiney (daughter) Elizabeth Barnard (granddaughter) John Shakespeare (father) Mary Arden (mother) Gilbert Shakespeare (brother) Joan Shakespeare (sister) Edmund Shakespeare (brother) Richard Shakespeare (grandfather) John Hall (son-in-law) Thomas Quiney (son-in-law)
✻ Shakespeare and other authors † Lost Category

v t e Shakespeare's sonnets
"Fair Youth" sonnets	Procreation sonnets 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 Rival Poet sonnets 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 "Envoy" 126
"Dark Lady" sonnets	127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 "Anacreontics" 153 154

1. Vendler, Helen. The Art of Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997. Print. pg. 327
2. ^ Duncan-Jones, Katherine, ed. Shakespeare’s Sonnets. 1997. London, New York. (2013) Print. 72-73
3. Shakespeare, William, and David West. Shakespeare's Sonnets. London: Duckworth Overlook, 2007. Print
4. Walters, John Cuming. The Mystery of Shakespeare's Sonnets: An Attempted Elucidation. New York: Haskell House, 1972. Print.

• Sonnets by William Shakespeare
• British poems