Shakespeare Sonnet 112
Your love and pity doth the impression fill
Most writers, in their heart of hearts, are private people who crave solitude in order to think, muse, and craft. The Shakespearean speaker of the sonnets demonstrates repeatedly his devotion to seclusion and to the Muse, who is the queen of his solitude.
Sonnet 112 dramatizes the speaker’s unique relationship with his Muse; her attention not only motivates his cogitation but also gives him respite from the scars and wounds inflicted by public interaction.
First Quatrain: “Your love and pity doth the impression fill”
The speaker addresses his Muse, reporting to her, “Your love and pity doth the impression fill / Which vulgar scandal stamp’d upon my brow.” He dramatizes accusations hurled at him by claiming that they have cut into his “brow” leaving a gaping hole. But fortunately, his Muse will bandage his wound and fill it is as one would fill in a divot.
He then tells her that he does not take to heart what others think of him; he does not “care . . . who calls [him] well or ill.” He knows that his own worth is not determined by anyone or anything outside of himself. His own soul, to whom he relates as his Muse, can treat any of his trifling tribulations.
Second Quatrain: “You are my all-the-world, and I must strive”
The speaker then tells his Muse, “You are my all-the-world.” Because the Muse is his world, he can take only the evaluation of himself from her. No one other than his own heart, mind, and soul can offer “shames and praises,” because no one knows him so well as his Muse. Only his own soul can understand his “steel’d sense.” The people of society see only his outward garb; they can never know his inner being.
Third Quatrain: “In so profound abysm I throw all care”
The speaker portrays his Muse as a deep vessel into which he can toss all worry and taunting sound of “others’ voices.” By tossing his worries into the abyss, he loses his need to respond to critics and flatterers. He knows that neither praise nor blame from others makes him better or worse. And though the artist in him is vulnerable to criticism, he realizes the futility of becoming caught up in its grip. Therefore, he will always strive to ignore those voices.
The Couplet: “You are so strongly in my purpose bred”
The speaker can dispense with those critics and flatterers because his Muse is “so strongly in [his] purpose bred / That all the world besides [he deems] are dead.” To him the outside world does not exist. He takes his inspiration and instruction directly from his own Muse—his heart, mind, and soul.
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