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Lust is the hero-villain… | blogjou

Harold Bloom

How to Read and Why

p. 114
02 Jun 2021

Lust is the hero-villain...


Lust is the hero-villain of this night-piece of the spirit, male lust for the “hell” that concludes the sonnet, hell being the Elizabethean-Jacobean slang for the vagina. The ancient commonplace of sadness-after-coition achieves its apothesis in Sonnet 129, but at more than the expense of spirit. So impacted is this sonnet’s language that it evades its apparent adherence to the Renaissance believe that each sexual act shortens a man’s life.