All the sonnets seemed to go back and forth between the idea that the lover is torn between two emotions when thinking or dreaming of the beloved: joy and pain. It seems that every time the poet speaks of the lover, it’s either in the most wonderful light or the most awful shadow. Many of the poets curse Cupid for piercing them with his arrow or dart and burdening them with such a complicated emotion. None of the sonnets ever speak of how easy it is to love. The sonnets go on and describe the beauty and irresistible virtue of the beloved. A few lines later, it often states that there is insurmountable joy and it is short-lived, followed by woeful sorrow.
The gods of love are often evoked in these sonnets but they are also cursed by the poets for bringing love upon them – Cupid is mentioned in more than one poem and Wroth speaks to Venus in her poem “Pamphilia to Amphilanthus”. Many of the sonnets also draw on the idea of foolishness; they describe how they are being fools in love and how they are acting thoughtlessly because they are so preoccupied with their beloved. It brings clichés such as “people do crazy things when they’re in love” to one’s mind.
Throughout their poem, the lover seems to be arguing with him or herself about how they may have lost their sanity or other virtues they had never had to question. Sometimes the sonnet seems to be the lover arguing with him or herself about whether or not they actually should be in love with their beloved. One line the poet will be speaking about the radiant beauty and the joy his or her beloved bring him or her, when not two lines later they will speak of the relentless distress caused by their beloved. It seems that the poet often does not answer the questions, but leaves the ending for the reader to toil over as he or she may toil over his or her beloved.
There is a fine line between love and hate; it appears that the poets that composed these sonnets walk the tight rope between the two. Love is confusing. It can be joyous, it can be miserable; love can be full of shadows or as radiant as the sun. Love can bring the thought of living a long, happy life together or the thought of Death. Love can make one think of beauty and immortalization of the beloved of the poet within their poem or it can make the poet think of how time will take a toll on the beloved and the beauty will fade as time fades. The sonnets are never completely happy; the poets seem dejected some of time. It seems that love can never be a completely blissful emotion. It is riddled with doubt and skepticism. None of the poets of these sonnets would say “happily ever after” exists. Love is hate and a person cannot have one without the other.
