Irony is often defined as saying one thing, yet doing or meaning something else. The use of irony can be seen in Sonnet 57 when the poet says: "Nor dare I question with my jealous thought / Where you may be, or your affairs suppose." Clearly, although the poet says he is not jealous or thinking about where his beloved may be -- he is obviously obsessing about why and how his beloved is absent. This conveys the sense that the poet does not want to mull over where his beloved is philandering. The poet feels that to do so is debasing and enslaving -- yet the poet, despite his better intentions cannot stop himself. And the greatest irony, writes that poet, is that although the beloved is unfaithful, the loving poet, mad with longing, cannot help but be true: "So true a fool is love that in your will,...
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