Viewed from the surface, Shakespeare's Sonnet 27 is a lament for the absent beloved. However, when considered from a more careful perspective, it rather involves a mental journey that reveals the speaker's inner reality and state of mind. As in many of Shakespeare's sonnets, this poem is built on paradoxes that help reveal the speaker's inner reality. The axial paradox is the inspiring object that illuminates the speaker's nocturnal journey and at the same time makes his existence miserable, since the object cannot be grasped or possessed by the speaker. This central paradox is expressed in the form of codes in binary opposition that show the reality that the source of inspiration helped create in the speaker's mind. The unraveling of these opposing images will lead us to the core or theme of the poem. The theme shows a reality that the speaker cannot escape or possess its source of inspiration, and is bound to it day and night, physically and mentally, in light and darkness. This situation triggers his tiredness and lack of inner peace as the prevailing mood throughout the poem. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayThe first opposite code in the poem appears in the first quatrain: "tired with toil I hasten to bed." The bed serves as a place of rest where the speaker briefly escapes the weariness of his physical environment. In the first two lines the bed appears as the place of "dear rest for travel-weary limbs". However, this resting place is nothing more than the starting platform for another journey: the journey that the speaker's mind, motivated by his beloved, will begin during the night. So far, there is an interplay of two fundamental opposing elements in the speaker's world: his physical reality and his mental reality. The end of the physical journey marks the beginning of a more imaginative and spiritual wandering. His mind begins to work “when the work of the body is exhausted”. The second quatrain also begins with elements in binary opposition. After being introduced to the separation and contrast between mind and body in the first quatrain, the second challenges some conventions of logical meaning. In his nocturnal journey, he "looks at the darkness", as "the blind see. The meaning of comparing oneself to a blind man, and like a blind man: he sees", immediately establishes another contradiction: the blind cannot see; however, he can see as a blind man sees. He is blinded in the shadows by the circumstances of his love, desire and longing for his beloved. This element of contrast reinforces the atmosphere that the speaker managed to establish in the first quatrain. Up to this point, the prevailing images in his mind are of a gloomy mood. So far in his mental exercise the darkness of the night prevails. The third quatrain, however, displays the most important opposing images that lead to the paradoxical climax of the sonnet. It begins with the contrasting image of the beloved against the total darkness of the night. According to the speaker's perception, the beloved's shadow disrupts the prevailing gloom and gloom that his journey has presented to him thus far. There are three very important opposing images mixed in this quatrain that reveal the essence of the beloved's meaning to the speaker, as well as the meaning of his mental "pilgrimage" compared to his physical reality. First, we have his “imaginary soul sight” and the objects and means of that imaginary sight, even though he claims to see something, that something he sees is a product of his “blind sight”. This would be reminiscent of the blind man's vision of the second quatrain. The second great paradox is the thing that sees: “your shadow”. A shadow that cannot touch either.