SONNETCAST – William Shakespeare's Sonnets Recited, Revealed, Relived - Sonnet 38: How Can My Muse Want Subject to Invent

Sonnet 38: How Can My Muse Want Subject to Invent

06/04/23 • 22 min

SONNETCAST – William Shakespeare's Sonnets Recited, Revealed, Relived

With his remarkably deadpan Sonnet 38, William Shakespeare changes tone completely and positions his own poetry as the product of the man who has so long now been his Muse. Like Sonnet 37, it does not obviously fit into the sequence, but like Sonnet 37, it still clearly speaks to the same young man and also like Sonnet 37, it references topics that have been expressed earlier in the series: in this case the particular relationship that exists between a poet and the person he is inspired by to write poetry for, something that has been addressed as early as Sonnet 21, where Shakespeare compared himself favourably to the kind of poet who sings his love's praises in unsubstantiated hyperbole.

Previous Episode

Sonnet 37: As a Decrepit Father Takes Delight

In the first of three sonnets that appear to disrupt the sequence that concerns itself with the young man's evident infidelity, Sonnet 37 revisits the themes previously encountered of the poet's keenly felt lack of luck, absence of esteem, and sorely missing success, and contrasts this with the young man's abundant riches, both material and metaphorical, describing them as a source of sustenance and survival even while Fortune bestows her gifts elsewhere.

Next Episode

Sonnet 39: O How Thy Worth With Manners May I Sing

Sonnet 39 is the last of four sonnets that seem to disrupt the sequence of events until Sonnet 35, and picks up more or less directly with Sonnet 36 by suggesting that it would be best if William Shakespeare were separate from the young man, though for wholly different reasons. The sonnet appears to post-rationalise an imposed absence of, or from, the young man, while also echoing the question posed by Sonnet 38 of how to sing the young man's praises, but then again developing this into a totally different direction. As with Sonnets 36, 37, and 38, it is not entirely clear whether this sonnet has been grouped together with these other poems here simply because it appears to make reference to at least two of them, or whether it really does belong into this smaller group, irrespective of whether that smaller group is in the right place or not.