This sonnet from Shakespeare seems to be urging a young man to find a wife and have children to pass on his image and beauty. At first I thought this sonnet was just a reiteration of traditional gender roles, urging a man to seek out a woman to provide for and having a family to take care of. Especially in line 4 which says, “Thou dost beguile the world, unless some mother,” which is basically urging the young man to find a woman so he is not forced to leave her childless. The poet tells the young man that procreation could repair or refresh his aging looks. I found this part of the poem to be extremely interesting, the idea that pieces of someone can be preserved and passed on–and the idea that someone carrying another person’s pieces can keep those aspects alive in the original person longer. I almost imagine this like a crutch, Shakespeare comparing this young man’s offspring to someone that could help his self-love grow even more, self-love noted as being too abundant in the absence of children. There is a lot of irony in the idea that to reduce obsession with the self and love for the self one must create a person so similar to themselves that they can love themselves in a separate thing so as to hide their selfishness. I think one could argue that having kids is selfish–that taking pride in the similarity of one’s kid to oneself magnifies existing self-love. I also found it really interesting to see that men experienced pressure to have children and settle down early in this period of time, much like women were known to be. We don’t really see beauty, love, and offspring talked about a lot with the focus being on a man, which could display another layer of irony used by Shakespeare in this poem.
I like the irony that you find in the poem–that the speaker appeals to the man’s egotism in order to stop being so egotistical and just have kids already.
I like your interpretation of the poem, especially the irony in that reducing one’s obsession with the self comes from creating someone similar to you. However, I wonder if there is a less ironic interpretation of the poem. For instance, in line 9, “Thou art thy mother’s glass, and she in thee,” I interpreted this as the mother seeing herself in the speaker, and as such, she wishes for the speaker, her child, to have a child of their own as to pass along that love the same way she did. I believe both interpretations have merit, as Shakespeare’s sonnets have multiple meanings, but I like that both irony and the loving way of thinking of it can work.