“Sonnet 138: When my love swears that she is made of truth” Introduction

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“Sonnet 138: When my love swears that she is made of truth” Summary

“Sonnet 138: When my love swears that she is made of truth” Themes

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  Truth, Lies, and Love

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Sonnet 138: When my love swears that she is made of truth”

• Lines 1-4

  When my love swears that she is made of truth,
  I do believe her, though I know she lies,
  That she might think me some untutored youth,
  Unlearnèd in the world’s false subtleties.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 5-8

  Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
  Although she knows my days are past the best,
  Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue:
  On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 9-12

  But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
  And wherefore say not I that I am old?
  Oh, love’s best habit is in seeming trust,
  And age in love loves not to have years told.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 13-14

      Therefore I lie with her and she with me,
      And in our faults by lies we flattered be.

  

  

  

  

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“Sonnet 138: When my love swears that she is made of truth” Symbols

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  Tongue

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“Sonnet 138: When my love swears that she is made of truth” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• End-Stopped Line

  

  

  

  

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• Caesura

  

  

  

  

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• Alliteration

  

  

  

  

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• Assonance

  

  

  

  

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• Consonance

  

  

  

  

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• Metaphor

  

  

  

  

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• Polyptoton

  

  

  

  

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• Pun

  

  

  

  

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• Rhetorical Question

  

  

  

  

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• Paradox

  

  

  

  

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“Sonnet 138: When my love swears that she is made of truth” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Made of Truth
• Untutored
• Unlearnèd
• Subtleties
• Past the Best
• Simply
• Credit
• Wherefore
• Unjust
• Seeming Trust
• Age
• Flattered

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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Sonnet 138: When my love swears that she is made of truth”

• Form

• Meter

• Rhyme Scheme

“Sonnet 138: When my love swears that she is made of truth” Speaker

“Sonnet 138: When my love swears that she is made of truth” Setting

Literary and Historical Context of “Sonnet 138: When my love swears that she is made of truth”

More “Sonnet 138: When my love swears that she is made of truth” Resources

• External Resources

  • Sonnet 138 Read Aloud — Jamie Muffet recites "Sonnet 138."

  • Shakespeare's Life — A detailed biography of Shakespeare from the Folger Shakespeare Library.

  • Love Poetry in Renaissance England — Emily Mayne provides an introduction to the history of love poetry in England during the Renaissance.

  • Shakespeare's Sonnets — An overview of Shakespeare's Sonnets from the British Library

  • Shakespeare, Sexuality and the Sonnets — Aviva Dautch explores the Sonnets' complex relationship with sexuality at the British Library.

• LitCharts on Other Poems by William Shakespeare

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  • Sonnet 130: My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun

  • Sonnet 141: In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes

  • Sonnet 147: My love is as a fever, longing still

  • Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

  • Sonnet 19: Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws

  • Sonnet 20: A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted

  • Sonnet 27: "Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed"

  • Sonnet 29: When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes

  • Sonnet 30: When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

  • Sonnet 33: Full many a glorious morning have I seen

  • Sonnet 45: The other two, slight air and purging fire

  • Sonnet 55: Not marble nor the gilded monuments

  • Sonnet 60: Like as the waves make towards the pebbl'd shore

  • Sonnet 65 ("Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea")

  • Sonnet 71: No longer mourn for me when I am dead

  • Sonnet 73: That time of year thou mayst in me behold

  • Sonnet 94: "They that have power to hurt"