Sonnet 121:tis Better to Be Vile Than Vile Esteemed
Sonnet 121:tis Better to Be Vile Than Vile Esteemed - context Summary
Published in 1609
One of Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets published in The Sonnets (1609), this poem argues that public reputation can be unjust and that private truth matters more than others’ judgments. The speaker refuses to submit to external moral censures, asserting personal integrity and the right to pleasure despite critics. It frames hypocrisy as widespread: if outside opinion defines wrong, then all are culpable, so the speaker chooses self-consistency over reputation.
Read Complete Analyses‘Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed, When not to be receives reproach of being; And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed Not by our feeling, but by others’ seeing: For why should others’ false adulterate eyes Give salutation to my sportive blood? Or on my frailties why are frailer spies, Which in their wills count bad what I think good? No, I am that I am, and they that level At my abuses reckon up their own: I may be straight though they themselves be bevel; By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown; Unless this general evil they maintain, All men are bad and in their badness reign.
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