Patterns of Consolation in Shakespeare's Sonnets 1-126 | Death and the Algebra of Consolation (Sonnets 62-74)
Death and the Algebra of Consolation (Sonnets 62-74)
The consolations for the beloved's absence ultimately fail because they depend upon the eventual reunion of the two lovers—a reality that Shakespeare's speaker cannot control. Unable to reformulate reality, the lover reformulates his argumentative terms: he defines absence in its most extreme form—death.16 In its redefinition of absence, this group of sonnets again displays Shakespeare's argumentative tactic of shifting the terms of the problem posed in the sonnets immediately preceding. The shift in focus from absence to death offers advantages in the effort to find consolation. Death is an ultimate absence from which no return can be expected; it is also an inevitable absence that neither the lover nor the beloved can control. When death causes absence, the beloved cannot be said to refuse to return to his lover.17 In addition, this shift in the formulation of the problem of absence...
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