A Lover's Complaint
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A Lover's Complaint is a narrative poem usually attributed to William Shakespeare, although the poem's authorship is a matter of critical debate.
[edit] Form and Content
The poem consists of forty-nine seven-line stanzas written in the rhyme royal (with the rhyme scheme ababbcc), a metre and structure identical to that of Shakespeare's poem The Rape of Lucrece.
In the poem, the speaker sees a young woman weeping at the bank of a river, in which she throws torn-up letters, rings, and other tokens of love. An elderly shepherd asks the reason for her sorrow, and she responds by telling him of a former lover who pursued, seduced, and finally abandoned her. She concludes her story by conceding that she would fall for the young man's false charms again:
- O that infected moisture of his eye,
- O that false fire which in his cheek so glow'd,
- O that forc'd thunder from his heart did fly,
- O that sad breath his spongy lungs bestow'd,
- O all that borrowed motion seemingly ow'd,
- Would yet again betray the fore-betray'd,
- And new pervert a reconciled maid!
[edit] History and Authorship
The poem was originally appended to the first complete edition of Shakespeare's sonnets, which was published by Thomas Thorpe in 1609. However, critics have often doubted attribution to Shakespeare. A Lover's Complaint contains many words and forms not found elsewhere in Shakespeare, including several archaisms and Latinisms, and is sometimes regarded as rhythmically and structurally awkward. Conversely, other critics have a high regard for the poem's quality, and see thematic parallels to situations in Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well and Measure for Measure. The poem can also be regarded as an appropriate coda to the sonnets, with its narrative triangle of young woman, elderly man, and seductive suitor paralleling a similar triangle in the sonnets themselves. John Mackinnon Robertson published a study claiming that George Chapman wrote the poem, as well as originating Timon of Athens.
[edit] External links
- A Lover's Complaint, available at Project Gutenberg.
