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In another post I spoke about the importance of close reading, and promised some examples. This is the second! Below you will find a colour-coded close reading of Sonnet 20. For the purpose of this post, and limited as I am by the blog format, I have omitted things that I don’t think are useful.

Sonnet 20 – William Shakespeare

A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted

Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;

A woman’s gentle heart, but not acquainted

With shifting change as is false women’s fashion;

An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,

Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;

A man in hue, all hues in his controlling,

Which steals men’s eyes and women’s souls amazeth.

And for a woman wert thou first created,

Till nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting,

And by addition me of thee defeated

By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.

      But since she pricked thee out for women’s pleasure,

      Mine be thy love and thy love’s use their treasure.

Basics – This is a Shakespearean sonnet. Some call them English, or Elizabethan sonnets, which is a little misleading. What marks a Shakespearean sonnet as different to other sonnets, even those written by other English poets during the Elizabethan era, is the structure. Traditional sonnets will always have 14 lines, but Shakespearean sonnets will always have 3 quatrains [4 line stanzas] and a rhyming couplet at the end. Shakespeare often included a volta, or shift, in his couplet that would alter the way the poem should be considered holistically.¹ As is typical of him, Shakespeare wrote Sonnet 20 in iambic pentameter, and used an alternating rhyme scheme [ABAB / CDCD / EFEF / GG].²

Sonnet 20 is part of a sequence of sonnets termed Fair Youth, all of which appear to be addressing and / or are about a young man. There is some debate amongst scholars about who this man might be, and in fact if he exists at all. There are those that believe he likely did exist, and was a lover of Shakespeare’s. A second school of thought suggests that these poems are written to the imagined personification of youth / youthful masculinity.

The first line of this sonnet starts strong. ‘A woman’s face’ tells us who the speaker is discussing, introducing the subject of the poem early. Now Sonnet 20, more so than any other of Shakespeare’s poems, or at least of any of them I have studied, is preoccupied with sex and gender. So it is important to note here that we start with a very clear, gendered / sexed subject. A woman, or at the very least, someone with a woman’s face. A face that is, further to that, painted by ‘nature’s’ hand. This is personification, and in some transcriptions you might find ‘nature’ capitalised – becoming a proper noun.³ Even without the capitalisation, the personification of nature remains: ‘painted’ is a verb – in order for nature to paint, nature must be capable of enacting an activity, and thus must be, in some way, corporeal.

The second line is where we begin to see gender and sex questioned more openly. Now this poem can be confusing to read, but as mentioned in the basics I went over, Shakespeare is fond of a volta, so it may be worth reading the poem through once, taking the volta into account, and then going back over some of these sections with a bit more clarity. This line follows on from the last, meaning Shakespeare is using enjambment in this poem – or run on sentences. ‘Hast thou’ then is part of the previous clause, letting us know that ‘thou’ or you in modern vernacular [or us, as the speaker is directly addressing the reader] is the person who has a woman’s face.

The speaker then calls the subject ‘master-mistress of my passion.’ This is a really important phrase in this poem for 2 reasons. 1) it tells us that the subject, be they master or mistress, is ‘of’ the speaker’s passion- they are in control of it, it is their domain. Just as you might consider Poseidon ‘master of the sea’ the subject of the poem is ‘master-mistress of my passion.’ 2) ‘master-mistress’ clearly presents the gender / sex duality in this poem. The subject is going to be described both as woman and man, they are not one of the other, but both within the confines of the poem, moving back and forth between the roles as our understanding develops.

I’ve chosen to look at all the lines in this sonnet separately, but again we have some enjambment! ‘A woman’s gentle heart’ tells us that the subject of the poem is like a woman in some ways. If we were keeping a tally we’d now have two || under Woman and fat 0 under Man. The speaker quickly hedges with a ‘but.’ The subject has a woman’s face, and a woman’s heart, but, is ‘not acquainted / With shifting change as is false women’s fashion.’ Now, ‘acquainted’ is an interesting word choice here, because if you are not ‘acquainted’ with something that’s more than it not being a habit of yours, or typical of you, it is removed from you. It is something you have not even a passing familiarity with.

So, despite having a woman’s face and heart, the subject of the poem is removed from the ‘shifting change’ that is ‘false women’s fashion.’ Which is another interesting sentence. I would say there are 2 potential ways to read that phrase, the 1st is that ‘shifting change’ or perhaps, unreliability / the changing of ones mind, is the domain of women, who the speaker is calling ‘false’ kind of as an insult. In modern vernacular we might transition that into something like ‘untrustworthy.’ Alternatively, the subject is unacquainted with ‘shifting change’ – perhaps in this sense the changing of ones garments, as is ‘false women’s’ as a cohesive, inter-reliant phrase ‘fashion.’ Which may mean, in this alternate reading, that the speaker is not a ‘false’ woman – someone who dresses like a woman (common for actors in this era, as women were not permitted to act, and would often be played by young men) – but rather truly a person of, again within the confines of the poem, both sexes. This line ends in a semi-colon which lets us know the next line is relevant to this one.

The next line,’An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,’ follows on from the semi-colon in the previous line, so is the next clause in that sentence. Again, this is enjambment. This line might, ostensibly, confirm the first reading of the previous line as a “better” or more fully supported reading. The first section ‘An eye more bright than theirs’ draws a line between the subject and other women, and is complimentary about the subject. The second half ‘less false in rolling’ again suggests that there is a certain untrustworthiness, or dishonesty prevalent in women – perhaps also a fickle, changeable approach to love. Women, who are ‘false’ fall into and out of love easily, and / or lie about their feelings. Our subject, who is not fully a woman, does not do this. However, the second potential reading is not actually dismissed by this next line. ‘An eye more bright than theirs’ could still be about the ‘false women’ (people who only dress as women, likely actors) rather than ‘false women’ (women who are untrustworthy), and in fact the subject’s eye being ‘more bright’ might be to do with the more honest way in which they are a woman – having been given a woman’s face and heart by nature. If we then read the second part ‘less false in rolling’ through the same lens, it still makes sense. An actor dressed as a woman may have to feign attraction to men on the stage, this would be, in a sense, ‘false.’ In such a reading, the speaker might be insisting that the subject’s eyes as less ‘false’ either because they have some elements of a woman, and therefore perhaps might truly be able to love a man, or because in being generally less false, all subsequent behaviours are more honest.

The next line ‘Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;’ is again enjambment – carrying on from the previous line. This is a simple, complimentary line that adds to the previous one. As well as being ‘less false’ the subject’s eyes gild whatever they land on – metaphorically covering the object of their gazing in gold, making it more beautiful, appealing, or valuable. This is really a comment on the value of the subject themselves: being so lovely and honest, their affection / attention / acclaim makes the object of their desire more desirable.

‘A man in hue, all hues in his controlling,’ is sometimes read as the volta in this sonnet. I don’t necessarily disagree with that, certainly it is a change in tact, but arguably this line simply develops on ideas already introduced: the speaker has not, thus far, said that the subject is a woman, just like they are like one. We are told here that the subject has a man’s ‘hue.’ The word hue, in this context, is not merely concerned with colour, but more broadly ‘form, fashion, figure…external appearance’ from the Old English etymology.⁴ If we use this definition, then the subject is not the colour of a man, but the form, or figure of a man. In short, the subject is transformed into a man, transitioned from woman to man in the mind of the reader. If we returned to our tally sheet it would 2-1 to Woman, but at least Man is off the mark! The second part of that sentence, the subclause, makes a bit less sense. ‘All hues in his controlling’ at least confirms, via the pronoun, that the subject is a man. Could ‘hues’ here mean colours? After all, Shakespeare has told us he ‘gilds’ others, and gold is a colour… the thing is, this line, although interesting, has little impact on the overall themes of the poem, beyond confirming the sex of the subject. So, to be honest with you, I’m going to move on. Part of close reading is also being able to say ‘cool, that line / word / technique isn’t going to change my impression of this, or how I am reading it.’ In this case, I find the subclause of this line confusing, so devoting a lot of time and space trying to explain it, isn’t going to be useful for either of us!

‘Which steals men’s eyes and women’s souls amazeth.’ is by far the more interesting line anyway! This line confirms something which we might already have suspected – as well as being both woman and man himself, the subject is also attractive to both women and men. This is another comment on the beauty of the subject: he is so beautiful, so true of heart, so honest, that he is unconstrained by the binaries of heterosexual romance and attraction – he is simply attractive to everyone.

Still, the word choices in this line tell us something about Shakespeare’s awareness of conventional romantic norms, and perhaps also indicates something about how sexuality was gendered in this period. The subject ‘steals’ the attention of men, specifically he steals men’s ‘eyes’ rather than their hearts, or respect. By contrast, the subject ‘amazeth’ women’s ‘souls,’ telling us that he earns that amazement, or is otherwise allowed to amaze women – their attention is not stolen. Interesting also, is that it is the ‘soul’ of the woman that wants him. This goes beyond lust then, we would assume. If lust is the domain of the eyes, then is love not the domain of the soul? This tells us two things: 1) the subject’s being male means that he must ‘steal’ rather than be gifted, or earn the affection of men, but may ‘amazeth’ women seemingly at will – presenting Shakespeare’s awareness of a gender based-romantic norm and 2) Shakespeare is either separating lust from love (‘men’s eyes’ vs ‘women’s souls’) or otherwise telling us that men and women love / lust differently.

Now, I’m going line by line here, but poems are holistic things, each line has a degree of interdependency on the others, they are a capsule piece of fiction. With that in mind, let’s recall from the previous two lines that the subject is male, despite his womanly features, and that Shakespeare has illustrated an awareness of the gender norms inherent in romance of the period (or, in modern vernacular, heteronormativity.) ‘And for a woman wert thou first created,’ tells us that the subject is a man, and in being a man, was ‘created’ for a woman. I don’t want to get too far into religious themes here, because that isn’t a lens I have used to read any other line in this poem, but it is definitely a tact you could take here! Traditionally, in the creation story, Eve is created for Adam, Shakespeare reverses that here. As the subject has so many feminine attributes, and is attractive to all people, he is the ‘created’ one. We must remember also that he is crafted by personified nature, who could be considered God. So, just as he has throughout, the subject confounds gender norms, the reversal of the creation story is significant because it is another example of how Shakespeare and the speaker subvert these norms, to present the [again, to use modern vernacular] non-binary reality of the subject.

When read post-Volta [spoilers!] this line indicates what the volta will be – that the subject was initially meant to be a woman, thus we understand that ‘for a woman’ does not mean ‘for’ – to belong to or be bestowed upon, but ‘for’ as in, ‘what do you take me for?’ This line has a wonderfully handled double-meaning, but not a double-entendre – this is an important distinction, because there are double-entendres coming up!

Nature is again personified in this next line, ‘Till nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting,’ but this time we get a gender. Shakespeare’s nature is a lady, an image that has become pretty familiar in the public consciousness. With this, and the speaker’s assertion that personified nature ‘fell a-doting’, or fell in love / lust, we begin to understand the hinted at origin story of the subject. Crafted a woman, given a woman’s face and heart, made ‘for’ a woman (made as woman in this sense), but then given a man’s ‘hue.’ Now we know why – nature fell in love with her female creation, and made her, instead, a he.

This story is confirmed by the next few lines. ‘And by addition me of thee defeated’ tells us that nature added something to the the female creation, that would ‘defeat’ the purposes of the speaker – can we guess what that might be? Yes! You guessed it! A beard!… And also a penis. Now, the use of ‘defeated’ is notable, obviously Shakespeare had a rhyme scheme to consider, but it has some interesting, and potentially double-entendre-y possibilities. To defeat someone is to overcome them, to beat them at something, to win, usually in a battle. The phrase ‘me of thee defeated’ is a confusing one, but we must consider the enjambment in the poem, and the previous lines – nature defeated ‘me’, the speaker, ‘of’ the subject. The subject was, in this case, prize, or possibly battleground! And the nature of her army? Gender, sex, creation, the heteronormative constraints of Renaissance courtship. In this period, however, it was not unusual to see wooing, or seducing, as a kind of battle. Usually a male speaker would beat back the defences of the coy feminine subject, eventually “defeating” her – to be clear, that means he “wins” and gets to shag her. Look at poems like To His Coy Mistress, Marvell, or Donne’s The Flea. This isn’t a hugely strong interpretation within the text, you’d likely need to bring in some outside examples of such vocabulary in other Renaissance and / or Shakespearean poetry to back it up, but these next few lines play into similar themes, so bear that in mind.

We already have a good idea of what the ‘addition’ was, but the speaker confirms it in the 12th line. ‘By adding one thing to my purpose nothing’ might seem no more salacious than the previous line. Yes, there is confirmation that nature adds ‘one thing’ confirming our phallic suspicions, but it is ‘nothing’ which is, in fact, telling. In this period ‘nothing’ is used repeatedly, including in Shakespeare’s writings, as a synonym, or wink-wink code for vagina. By telling us that the ‘one thing’ was ‘to my purpose nothing’ tells us that whatever nature, personified and feminine, added to the subject served the same purpose as ‘nothing’ would to the speaker. This line also tells that whatever nature added was ‘nothing,’ in the other sense, as in no help, no benefit etc. to the speaker. This is a classic double-entendre, it has an obvious and clear meaning, that kind of hints at what we know, as well as a risqué second reading that requires knowledge to understand.

Then we get the couplet. Shakespeare has tired a bit of his double-entendres here, instead he is a straight talker (if you’ll pardon the pun.) ‘But since she pricked thee out for women’s pleasure,’ is the first line of the rhyming couplet that caps off all of Shakespeare’s sonnets. ‘Pricked thee out’ means exactly what you think it does, similarly ‘for women’s pleasure’ tells us what we have already gathered from the rest of the poem: the subject is a man, men exist for women within the set gender norms of Renaissance romance, and despite the feminine better qualities he has, and the attraction he inspires in men, the subject’s inherent gender-fluidity really exists only within the confines of the speaker’s imagination.

Our final line then, the volta! The plot twist. Throughout Sonnet 20, the speaker has alluded to a romantic interest, a desire for the subject. We saw it in the first quatrain ‘master-mistress,’ in the complimentary way the subject was discussed, and finally in the lamentation of the subject’s unfortunate sex, which ‘defeated’ the speaker’s amorous intent. ‘Mine be thy love and thy love’s use their treasure.’ then should upset all of that, to be a volta, right? And it kind of does. Over the course of Sonnet 20, the speaker, and thus Shakespeare, presents an awareness of the stereotypical, or conventional gender norms in romance. This was written in the 17th century, after all, and in a country that had, within living memory, yo-yo’d back and forth between Catholicism and Anglicanism, neither of which was exactly queer positive. The speaker laments the subject’s sex, they are, presumably, male because if they were female then the subject would be an appropriate choice for them, and the speaker makes it clear that the subject should be female. So, at once, the speaker tells the reader that they cannot pursue a relationship with the person they desire, and also, offers an excuse for that desire. Further to that point, the speaker explains to the reader all the ways the subject is desirable – even personifying nature, and having her fall into a same-sex love so intense, her only recourse is to make the subject male. Why am I summarising this here? Because despite all of this, this volta is an admission of love! ‘Mine be thy love’ is exactly what it sounds like, the speaker is admitting their love of the subject, and the phrasing (‘mine be thy’ rather than ‘thy be mine’) suggests a level of requited feeling. The second part ‘and thy love’s use their treasure’ presents a coming to terms with things, albeit resentfully. The speaker will take love, even if the body of the subject must be for the pleasure of women. This is a change, a volta, because the speaker departs from their pattern throughout the poem, seemingly coming to terms with the situation.

1. A good example of a volta is in Sonnet 130, which I have also done a close reading of! ↩︎
2. An iamb is a metric foot made of two beats, it is often likened to a heartbeat ‘ba Dum’ having one unstressed [short] and then one stressed [long] syllable per foot. Much of Shakespeare’s work, and plenty of other Renaissance verse, was written in iambic meter. The ‘x-meter’ phrase tells us how many iambs occur per line. Pent means 5 – in Sonnet 20 5 iambic feet occur per line, therefore it is written in iambic pentameter. ↩︎
3. The Folger Shakespeare, for example, which is an excellent resource, capitalises nature throughout. ↩︎
4. https://www.oed.com/dictionary/hue_v1?tab=meaning_and_use ↩︎