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Sonnet 74 continues and closes the theme of Sonnet 73, which focuses on the aging and final death of the poet/speaker.
As readers have seen many times before, sonnet series are contained in the 154 sequence. Such is the case with Sonnet 74, which is a companion to sonnet 73. In sonnet 73, the speaker metaphorically dramatizes the aging process to emphasize the nature of strong love and its preservation in art: “This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong, / To love that well which thou must leave ere long.” Sonnet 74 begins with the coordinating conjunction “but” to signal its connection to sonnet 73. First Quatrain: “But be contented: when that fell arrest”The speaker thus continues from the previous sonnet telling his listener to “be contented” even though they must be parted by the speaker’s death. The speaker emphasizes the inevitability of “that fell arrest” which will “carry [him] away.” He uses a legal metaphor saying there will be no “bail” to get him released from that arrest. The speaker then opens the discussion to the possibility of a kind of immortality in which the body cannot participate but his greater self, the soul, can. Second Quatrain: “When thou reviewest this, thou dost review”In the second quatrain, the speaker then avers that his body is simply a part of the earth, and the earth deserves to take it back. But he is more that earth; he is spirit and that cannot be taken from him, nor can it be taken from his loved ones. Third Quatrain: “So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life”The speaker then comforts the beloved that after the speaker has departed his body, the beloved will have lost only the “dregs of life.” The physical body is nothing more than the “prey of worms.” Death has dominion over the physical body, and that make it “too base” “to be remembered.” This notion harkens back to sonnet 72 as the speaker commanded that his name be buried with his body. He insists that loss of the gross body is not to be lamented. The Couplet: “The worth of that is that which it contains”The couplet, “The worth of [the body] is that which it contains, / And that is this, and this with thee remains,” plainly declares that the only value of the body is that it contains the soul, and the speaker has put his soul in his art, which will continue to provide sustenance for all those other souls who may read his creations, including those family and friends who will mourn his loss. Other Shakespeare articles: Who is Shakespeare? Sonnet Commentaries: 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, 96, 116, 126, 130, 138, 146
The copyright of the article Shakespeare Sonnet 74 in British Poetry is owned by Linda Sue Grimes. Permission to republish Shakespeare Sonnet 74 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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