Sonnet 112: Your Love And Pity Doth Th' Impression Fill Poem by William Shakespeare

A sonnet which seems to be so complex that no amount of teasing away at its lines can give an entirely satisfactory meaning to them. Lines 7,8,12,13, and 14 are especially difficult. However it is worth focussing on the general theme, a theme which dominates the sonnet to such an extent that its force and presence overrides any particular difficulties and carries all before it like a river in torrent. That theme is summed up in line 5, You are my all the world, and in various forms it appears, disappears and re-appears. Thus 'What care I who talks of me, as long as you are aware of me'; 'For me, no one else in the universe exists apart from you. Other than that there is nothing'; 'Nothing, no force, no substance, no influence, can change what I feel for you'; 'I cast aside everything else in this world into the most bottomless pit, apart from my love for you'; 'I am deaf to everything which is uttered, aside from anything you might say, to which I am all ears'; 'I neglect myself entirely, and I listen only to you. That is how I organise my life'. 'You are my motives, my intentions, my everything. there is nothing else in me which has any strength'; 'You are my all the world. everything else in comparison with that is death and is in fact dead'.

With all these connections the sonnet links to the three others close by,105,106 and 108, all of which tread the thin line between blasphemy and humour, between sacred and profane. The love described here is close to idolatrous, if not actually so, and the poet admits that he has lost all knowledge of criticism, both of himself and of the youth.

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