Sonnet 29 goes from envying everyone to pitying kings in one thought
Down on his luck, the speaker of Sonnet 29 weeps alone, curses his fate and envies other men their looks, friends and talent. Then a single memory of the person he loves lifts him like a lark at dawn. By the last line he would not swap places with a king.
The first eight lines are a portrait of envy at full strength. Out of favour with fortune and with other people, the speaker weeps over his outcast state and troubles a heaven that will not listen with cries that achieve nothing. He looks at himself and curses. He wishes he were more hopeful, better-looking, better connected, and then gets specific: "Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope". Even the things he most enjoys give him the least pleasure.
The turn comes at the ninth line, almost casually. While he is close to despising himself, he happens to think of the beloved. The word haply, meaning by chance, matters: the rescue is unplanned, a stray thought rather than a resolution. His state, the same word he used for his misery, suddenly rises like a lark leaving the sullen earth at daybreak to sing hymns at heaven's gate. The heaven that was deaf in line three now hears singing.
The couplet converts the feeling into wealth. Remembered love brings such riches that he would scorn to trade his condition with kings. The poem's shape, a long slide down and a sudden climb, mirrors the flight of the bird it describes.
That line about envying another man's art has a certain charm coming from this particular writer. Shakespeare probably studied at the King's New School in Stratford, a free grammar school chartered in 1553, where lessons centred on Latin grammar and classical authors. He went on to produce most of his known work between 1589 and 1613, moving from comedies and histories to tragedies such as Hamlet and King Lear, and finally to romances like The Tempest. Few writers have had less reason to covet anyone else's talent.
Source: Sonnet 29: When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes
