Shakespeare's Sonnet 47 is one of the large number of the sequence addressed to a well-born young man. More locally, it is a thematic continuation of "Sonnet 46

Sonnet 46

Sonnet 46 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It's a member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet expresses his love towards a young man.- Translation of Sonnet 46 :...

."

Paraphrase

My heart and my eyes have reached a mutually beneficial understanding. When my eye yearns for the sight of my beloved, or when my heart is pining, then my eye shares the sight of my beloved (seen in a painting) with my heart. At other times, my heart will share with my eye (in imagination) some memory or thought of the beloved. So whether in painting or in imagination, you are always present with me. It is impossible for you to move outside the sphere of my thoughts; I am always with my thoughts, and they are always with you. Or, if my thoughts are, as it were, sleeping, then your painting will delight my eyes and thus awake my heart.

Source and analysis

The sonnet thematically continues from the "verdict" delivered by the eye and heart in the previous sonnet. Kerrigan perceives an allusion to the story of Zeuxis and Parrhasius

Zeuxis and Parrhasius

.Zeuxis was a painter who flourished during the 5th century BC.-Life and work:Zeuxis was born in Heraclea, probably Heraclea Lucania in southern Italy, around 464 BC and was presumably the pupil of Apollodorus. Zeuxis often thought himself misunderstood by his public and Aristotle did not like...

 in the "painted banquet" of line 8. Comparing the same image to similar passages The Fairy Queen, Booth regards the image as symbolic of coldness and insufficience. Sidney Lee

Sidney Lee

Sir Sidney Lee was an English biographer and critic.He was born Solomon Lazarus Lee at 12 Keppel Street, Bloomsbury, London and educated at the City of London School and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he graduated in modern history in 1882. In the next year he became assistant-editor of the...

 suggests that the conceit of the poem inspired a passage in John Suckling

John Suckling (poet)

Sir John Suckling was an English poet and one prominent figure among those renowned for careless gaiety, wit, and all the accomplishments of a Cavalier poet; and also the inventor of the card game Cribbage...

's Tragedy of Benneralt. Edmond Malone

Edmond Malone

Edmond Malone was an Irish Shakespearean scholar and editor of the works of William Shakespeare.Assured of an income after the death of his father in 1774, Malone was able to give up his law practice for at first political and then more congenial literary pursuits. He went to London, where he...

 notes that the figure of line 3 appears also in The Comedy of Errors

The Comedy of Errors

The Comedy of Errors is one of William Shakespeare's earliest plays. It is his shortest and one of his most farcical comedies, with a major part of the humour coming from slapstick and mistaken identity, in addition to puns and word play. The Comedy of Errors is one of only two of Shakespeare's...

; Edward Dowden

Edward Dowden

Edward Dowden , was an Irish critic and poet.He was the son of John Wheeler Dowden, a merchant and landowner, and was born at Cork, three years after his brother John, who became Bishop of Edinburgh in 1886. Edward's literary tastes emerged early, in a series of essays written at the age of twelve...

notes parallels to Sonnet 75.

External links

• Analysis
• CliffsNotes