Thursday, December 22, 2011

The Misconceptions of Love

English literature has managed to win a place within my heart. I have developed a love affair with Beowolf, Paradise Lost, and several writings by Shakespeare, John Donne, John Milton, and Edmund Spenser. I am going to use these next few days while school is out to read parts of my English Lit book that was not covered in class........so, yeah, I am a total nerd.

There is a sonnet by Shakespeare that is so full of wisdom that I fell in love with the truth and wisdom that it holds. I wrote an essay on this sonnet for extra credit in my Lit class. Here goes:

Shakespeare Sonnet 138:

When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her, though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutored youth [like a simpleton],
Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue:
On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed.
But wherefore says she not she is unjust [unfaithful]?
But wherefore say not I that I am old?
Oh, love's best [guise] is in seeming trust,
And age in love loves not to have years told.
    Therefore I lie with her and she with me,
    And in our faults by lies we flattered be.

I wrote a whole essay on this and probably could have wrote a short book on it. It is a bitter sonnet about a man who stays with his wife knowing that she is being unfaithful to him.  Apparently he is a lot older than this woman and he feels the bitter insecurity of it because he knows that she is cheating on him probably with younger men. But, we see here that he is humoring her by pretending he does not know who she really is. He turns a blind eye to her unfaithfulness. Those last two lines are priceless: "Therefore I lie with her and she with me, and in our faults by lies we flattered be."  That is a powerful statement and a hard way to live.

There is a devastating healing (I know that sounds twisted) that comes from waking up next to someone you thought was your dream come true only to find out that it was a nightmare. Shakespeare summed it up by saying that they were only pretending with each other. There is a wonderful freedom that comes from seeing the truth about yourself and someone else when you know deep down that you are out of God's will. It hurts. It crushes, but in the end it heals.

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