Sonnet Cxxxvi Comments

This sonnet continues the play on the word 'Will' begun in the previous sonnet, and expands it further into various puns on 'something' and 'nothing'. As before, it is impossible to say how many Williams are involved, whether as lovers, or as husband, or when the poet himself is intended, except for the fairly unambiguous final line.

HV thinks that the poem, as many others, arises from a distinct antecedent situation, in this case a rebuttal of his sexual advances which the woman has recently made. Her soul rejects him physically, and this is his answer to that rejection, a request for her to consider him as being but a small item, a nothingness in the context of the many men she already enjoys. He is only a name, and a name has many meanings, all of which in this case coincide with her wishes and her secret sexual longings. She only therefore has to love his name and both he and she as a result will be fully satisfied.

Awesome I like this poem, check mine out

beautifully written ~For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold That nothing me, a something sweet to thee: ~