Solitude can often be a source of loneliness, and so we often seek to avoid the emptiness it seems to bring. While sometimes loneliness means it would be best to seek out the company of others, solitude can also be beneficial if we instead fill its void with silent contemplation.
William Shakespeare dwells on this idea in two of his sonnets: Sonnet 29 and Sonnet 30 are part of a sequence of five sonnets in which the solitary poet meditates upon his friend. While Sonnets 27 and 28 dwell on the theme of night and sleeplessness, 29 and 30 speak of a sense of loneliness and failure, and 31 expands the resolution of 30. The solitary reflections of the poet show how, while solitude can leave the heart emotionally wrought, it can also be an opportunity for the soul to find rest and find healing of interior wounds through contemplation.
When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself and curse my fate, wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possessed, Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee—and then my state, Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth sings hymns at heaven’s gate; For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings, That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
The deliberate usage of the words “outcast” and “disgrace,” more explicitly cast out and deprived of grace, paints the picture of the speaker being driven out as though from the Garden of Eden, besieging Heaven with “bootless” (hopeless) cries. Much like the original exiles from Eden, the speaker has no chance of readmittance to the garden and must adjust himself to an imperfect world.
The poem begins with the disdainful gaze of others, but in the fourth line, the speaker turns his gaze upon himself and is the source of his own curse. In the second quatrain, we see the standards by which he measures his failure: He envies the prospects, friends, talent, and opportunities of others. In fact, nature, or perhaps Heaven itself, has deprived him of these things without any apparent reason. His own sense of inadequacy prevents him from taking joy even in his own greatest blessings: “With what I most enjoy contented least.” Though the source of this contentment is not specified, scholars speculate that the speaker is referencing his own art or skill, which no longer brings him fulfillment.
The volta (“turn”) of the poem comes in line 9. Pulling himself back from the brink of self-loathing, the speaker turns his thoughts to his friend, the beloved, and in the third quatrain his complaints turn to hymns at the gates of Heaven. The repetition of the plosive “k” sound in line 11 signals a breakthrough, an illumination that comes with the dawn: “Like to the lark at break of day arising.” In the first quatrain, the speaker’s efforts to turn his thoughts from earth to things of Heaven fall flat; his gaze turns inward once again, and he cannot contemplate his blessings. With this second attempt, he turns his gaze outward to the contemplation of the gift of his friend, and, this time, his thought is able to rise from the “sullen earth” and sing praise to Heaven.
The rhyme scheme of this poem is not that of the English sonnet in which Shakespeare typically writes. Here, the rhyme scheme is abab cdcd ebeb ff. The return to rhyme “b” means the sonnet defies classification as either Shakespearean, Petrarchan, or Spenserian. What’s more, line 10 repeats not only the rhyme but the word “state” which ends line 2. This repetition signals a change in usage: The state of the speaker is entirely transformed. Line 10, when the poet breaks free of the usual rhyme scheme, is when the speaker breaks free of his former state of mind which nearly brought him to self-loathing. Instead, his thought “haply” turns to the love of the beloved, which makes him realize he is not bereft of fortune and wealth as he had previously thought.
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste: Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night, And weep afresh love’s long since cancelled woe, And moan the expense of many a vanished sight: Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er The sad account of fore-bemoanèd moan, Which I new pay as if not paid before. But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restored and sorrows end.
The speaker’s present perusal of old woes brings new wailing; he laments time not only past but poorly spent. In the “sessions,” or judicial proceedings in which memories appear as though before an assembly, sweet reminiscence and nostalgia turn to melancholy. Silence turns to sighing, which sharpens in line 4 into a wail. Once again, the speaker outlines his grievances more specifically in the second quatrain: He mourns for deceased friends, lost loves, and past experiences that can’t be revisited.
In the third quatrain, the speaker draws up the full account of what must be paid in grief. The use of the words “foregone” and “fore-bemoaned” emphasizes the redundancy of this grief as the speaker recounts his woes. As though he had never made these lamentations and as though his present revisiting of the memories cancels out past repayments, the speaker assumes a new grief, “Which I new pay as if not paid before.”
This complicated system of debts is quickly resolved in the couplet; here, the volta comes much later than it did in Sonnet 29. These two simple lines resolve all the speaker’s woes, simply with the thought of his friend: “All losses are restored and sorrows end.” The account is settled more quickly than it began, for the thought of the friend’s dearness eclipses the value of the “dear time” in line 4.
In both poems, the solitude cannot be long endured without at least the memory of another. In the absence of any object of contemplation before him, the speaker’s gaze turns restlessly back upon himself, upon his own past, and outward to the undefined masses with a feeling of lacking a firm place in the world. The active love of the present draws him back and grounds him in the aspect of himself that holds the highest value. The recollection of this love not only reminds him of his own place among his fellow players on the world stage, but also reorients him in his calling. He is able to play his part and pursue his calling with contentment. The speaker’s gaze is pulled back from the comparison with others’ gifts to the clear, accurate perception of his own capabilities, and he himself is drawn from self-reproach into a self-image renewed by the love of his friend.
