What is Shakespeare Sonnet XXIX all about?

Answer 1

Here's a quick hint: if you want an idea of what a Shakespeare Sonnet is all about, it often helps to read the first line and the last two lines. The last two lines usually sum up the point he is trying to make, and the first often gives an idea of the background that point is built on. In the famous Sonnet 18, the first line says he's going to compare someone to a day in summer and the last two say that his poetry makes that person eternal. It doesn't always work: in the almost-as-famous sonnet 116, it's the first line and lines 11 and 12 you need to look at. So what about sonnet 29? The first line says, "When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes". Clearly, the set-up is that things are going badly for Mr. S.: he is in "disgrace with fortune", meaning he is experiencing a run of bad luck, and he is also disgraced in "men's eyes", so he is currently unpopular. OK, that's the set-up. The last two lines say, "For thy sweet love rememb'red such wealth brings that then I scorn to change my state with kings." If you have trouble reading this line it might help to recognize that "such wealth brings" is a poetic inversion, which Shakespeare uses to get the word he wants to rhyme with at the end of the line. It means "brings such wealth", but of course "wealth" and "kings" don't rhyme. This last couplet together with the first line tell us that our man Will is remembering that someone loves him, and this gives him such (spiritual or emotional) wealth that he wouldn't change places with a king EVEN THOUGH he is down on his luck and nobody appreciates his work. That's the basic idea.

Answer 2

Please see this link, which details the meaning of Shakespeare's Sonnet 29.