By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘Let me confess that we two must be twain.’ Things are beginning to fall apart here, and the honeymoon period between Shakespeare and the Fair Youth gives way to Sonnet 36, the first of what are sometimes called the ‘separation sonnets’. Analysing his relationship with the young man, Shakespeare comes to the conclusion that, whilst their love for each other makes them one, they must remain two separate people. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (who made some rather odd choices when discussing Shakespeare’s Sonnets) thought this one of the finest in the whole sequence; whether we agree with him, it’s certainly worthy of closer analysis.
Let me confess that we two must be twain,
Although our undivided loves are one:
So shall those blots that do with me remain,
Without thy help, by me be borne alone.
In our two loves there is but one respect,
Though in our lives a separable spite,
Which though it alter not love’s sole effect,
Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love’s delight.
I may not evermore acknowledge thee,
Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,
Nor thou with public kindness honour me,
Unless thou take that honour from thy name:
But do not so, I love thee in such sort,
As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.