Lyric Self-Fashioning: Shakespeare’s ‘Sonnet 35’ as Formal Model

Are we the stories we tell about ourselves? Not entirely. We aren’t just a set of actions, experiences, plans, and hopes; we are also a set of beliefs, traits, capacities, and attitudes, none of which is essentially narrative in nature. We are, in other words, as much our character as our life. And while story form can help unify a messy life, when it comes to a messy character, we’re going to need something like the form of a poem.

Shakespeare’s Sonnet 35 is a perfect example. Its subject is a civil war in the soul, yet it subtly hints at a deeper-going unity of character—and even manages, somehow, to find bittersweet beauty in the ambivalence. It thus serves as a formal model, showing us what it would look and feel like to transfigure suffering and chaos by means of art. And it offers techniques we may borrow for ourselves, inspiring us to turn our own intractable internal conflicts into something we can endure, cope with, and, if we’re lucky, be just a little bit grateful for.