• Sonnet 129: Th'Expense of Spirit in a Waste of Shame

  • Apr 27 2025
  • Length: 28 mins
  • Podcast

Sonnet 129: Th'Expense of Spirit in a Waste of Shame

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  • Summary

  • Sonnet 129 is the most explicitly sexual, and therefore sexually explicit, poem in the collection so far, and it is the first to betray a deep unease on William Shakespeare's part with his own desire for his mistress. The language he employs to characterise the sexual act with her oscillates from ecstasy of expectation to post-coital depression, even disgust, with a vocabulary in-between that is reminiscent more of a war zone than of a romantic roll in the hay.
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