Sonnets & Essays
The Sonnet
A sonnet is fundamentally a dialectical construct which allows the poet to examine the nature and ramifications of two usually contrastive ideas, emotions, states of mind, beliefs, actions, events, images, etc., by juxtaposing the two against each other, and possibly resolving or just revealing the tensions created and operative between the two.
O. K., so much for the fancy language. Basically, in a sonnet, you show two related but differing things to the reader in order to communicate something about them. Each of the three major types of sonnets accomplishes this in a somewhat different way. There are, of course, other types of sonnets, as well, but I'll stick for now to just the basic three (Italian, Spenserian, English), with a brief look at some non-standard sonnets.
Miller, Nelson. "Basic Sonnet Forms." Sonnet Central. Cayuse Press Writers Exchange Board. Web. 05 \
Jan. 2012. <http://www.sonnets.org/basicforms.htm>.
O. K., so much for the fancy language. Basically, in a sonnet, you show two related but differing things to the reader in order to communicate something about them. Each of the three major types of sonnets accomplishes this in a somewhat different way. There are, of course, other types of sonnets, as well, but I'll stick for now to just the basic three (Italian, Spenserian, English), with a brief look at some non-standard sonnets.
Miller, Nelson. "Basic Sonnet Forms." Sonnet Central. Cayuse Press Writers Exchange Board. Web. 05 \
Jan. 2012. <http://www.sonnets.org/basicforms.htm>.
Petrarchan Sonnet: The Italian Sonnet
Rhyme Scheme: abbaabba/c d c d c d
c d d c d c
c d e c d e
c d e c e d
c d c e d c
2 Part Structure: Octave (8 lines) and a Sestet (6 lines)
- These two parts play off of each other in a variety of ways:
- The Octave presents a proposition, dilemma, or question
- The Sestet provides a comment, application, or solution
The basic meter of all sonnets in English is iambic pentameter, although there have been a few tetrameter and even hexameter sonnets, as well.
The exact pattern of sestet rhymes (unlike the octave pattern) is flexible. In strict practice, the one thing that is to be avoided in the sestet is ending with a couplet (dd or ee), as this was never permitted in Italy, and Petrarch himself (supposedly) never used a couplet ending; in actual practice, sestets are sometimes ended with couplets
.
The point here is that the poem is divided into two sections by the two differing rhyme groups.
Miller, Nelson. "Basic Sonnet Forms." Sonnet Central. Cayuse Press Writers Exchange Board. Web. 05 Jan. 2012. <http://www.sonnets.org
/basicforms.htm>.
c d d c d c
c d e c d e
c d e c e d
c d c e d c
2 Part Structure: Octave (8 lines) and a Sestet (6 lines)
- These two parts play off of each other in a variety of ways:
- The Octave presents a proposition, dilemma, or question
- The Sestet provides a comment, application, or solution
The basic meter of all sonnets in English is iambic pentameter, although there have been a few tetrameter and even hexameter sonnets, as well.
The exact pattern of sestet rhymes (unlike the octave pattern) is flexible. In strict practice, the one thing that is to be avoided in the sestet is ending with a couplet (dd or ee), as this was never permitted in Italy, and Petrarch himself (supposedly) never used a couplet ending; in actual practice, sestets are sometimes ended with couplets
.
The point here is that the poem is divided into two sections by the two differing rhyme groups.
Miller, Nelson. "Basic Sonnet Forms." Sonnet Central. Cayuse Press Writers Exchange Board. Web. 05 Jan. 2012. <http://www.sonnets.org
/basicforms.htm>.
Sir Thomas Wyatt: "Whoso List to Hunt"
Thomas Wyatt and Anne Boleyn
Wyatt’s marriage to Elizabeth Brooke was not a happy one and the couple separated around 1525. Josephine Wilkinson, author of “The Early Loves of Anne Boleyn”1, writes of how it appears that Wyatt fell in love with Anne Boleyn when she arrived at the English Court in 1522. Wyatt’s grandson, George Wyatt, later wrote that when Thomas Wyatt first saw Anne he was “surprised by the sight thereof”2. It was love at first sight for Thomas, but Anne, at this time, was in love with Henry Percy and by 1526 she had a new admirer, the King. There is no evidence that Anne Boleyn and Thomas Wyatt were lovers, but some of Wyatt’s poems suggest that he had feelings for Anne. His riddle poem “What wourde is that that chaungeth not” has the answer “Anna”, in “The Lover Confesseth Him in Love with Phyllis” he writes of “That Brunet” which is thought to refer to Anne and his famous “Whoso list to hunt” tells of a man (Wyatt) hunting a hind with little chance of success, and then withdrawing from the hunt because of another hunter. If Anne is the hind, then Wyatt is talking of withdrawing his suit of Anne because she is now the property of the King “Noli me tangere; for Caesar’s I am.” Proof, Daily. "The Anne Boleyn Files » Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder » The Anne Boleyn Files." The Anne Boleyn Files The Anne Boleyn Files » The REAL TRUTH about Anne Boleyn "The Most Happy" 10 Oct. 2010. Web. 6 Jan. 2012. <http://www.theanneboleynfiles.com /6884/sir-thomas-wyatt-the-elder/>. Read more: http://www.theanneboleynfiles.com/6884/sir-thomas-wyatt-the-elder/#ixzz1ih6Rd5nR |
"Whoso List to Hunt"
Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,
But as for me, helas! I may no more. The vain travail hath worried me so sore, I am of them that furthest come behind. Yet may I by no means, my worried mind Draw from the deer; but as she fleeth afore Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore, Since in a net I seek to hold the wind. Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt, As well as I, may spend his time in vain; And graven in diamonds in letters plain There is written, her fair neck round about, "Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am, And wild to hold, though I seem tame." Poetic Device: Metaphor
Metaphor: compares two unlike things that have something in common, but unlike similes, metaphors use no connective such as like or as.
- The comparison in a metaphor may be: A. Stated: We are all puppets or B. Implied: Who is pulling the strings? A metaphor that is developed at great length, often through a whole work or a great part of it, is called an extended metaphor. Wyatt's "Whoso List to Hunt" contains an extended metaphor, with the hunter representing the love struck poet and the deer representing the poet's beloved (supposedly Anne Boleyn). This is an extended metaphor comparing hunting to catching or wooing his unobtainable love. 'Noli me tangere': Don't touch me; using Latin of John, 20:17.Out of context- presumably this applies to the situation of Anne Boleyn, admired by Wyatt, but already marked for Henry Vlll. An example of a mixing of a Petrarch conceit and what was thought to be an actual court intrigue: a court poet in love with the king's wife-to-be. Seen as a prototypical English Petrarchan fashion. Elizabethan themes: delight and melancholy of love; fickleness of fortune; the pangs of rejected love: the lover's agonies, his sighs and tears. Metaphors: love visualized in pastoral terms: the search for love compared to a hunt, chasing deer; the vanity of love compared to holding wind in a net; a series of contradictions: ain travail, wild so she seems tame. |
Shakespearean Sonnet: English Sonnet
Rhyme Scheme: abab/cdcd/efef/gg
Four Part Structure: 3 Quatrains (group of 4 lines) and a Couplet (2 lines)
- Quatrains: may present three examples or statements
- Couplet: the conclusion or application
- The couplet often provides a comment on the preceding lines or gives them a twist.
Four Part Structure: 3 Quatrains (group of 4 lines) and a Couplet (2 lines)
- Quatrains: may present three examples or statements
- Couplet: the conclusion or application
- The couplet often provides a comment on the preceding lines or gives them a twist.
Shakespearean Sonnet Basics & Iambic Pentameter
Iambic Pentameter and the English Sonnet Style Shakespeare’s sonnets are written predominantly in a meter called iambic pentameter, a rhyme scheme in which each sonnet line consists of ten syllables. The syllables are divided into five pairs called iambs or iambic feet. An iamb is a metrical unit made up of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable. An example of an iamb would be good BYE. A line of iambic pentameter flows like this:
baBOOM / baBOOM / baBOOM / baBOOM / baBOOM.
Here are some examples from the sonnets:
When I / do COUNT / the CLOCK / that TELLS / the TIME (Sonnet 12)
When IN / dis GRACE / with FOR / tune AND / men’s EYES
I ALL / a LONE / be WEEP / my OUT/ cast STATE (Sonnet 29)
Shall I / com PARE/ thee TO / a SUM / mer’s DAY?
Thou ART / more LOVE / ly AND / more TEM / per ATE (Sonnet 18)
Shakespeare’s plays are also written primarily in iambic pentameter, but the lines are unrhymed and not grouped into stanzas. Unrhymed iambic pentameter is called blank verse. It should be noted that there are also many prose passages in Shakespeare’s plays and some lines of trochaic tetrameter, such as the Witches' speeches in Macbeth.
Mabillard, Amanda. Shakespearean Sonnet Basics: Iambic Pentameter and the English Sonnet Style. Shakespeare Online. 20 Aug. 2000.
(January 25, 2012) < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/sonnetstyle.html >.
baBOOM / baBOOM / baBOOM / baBOOM / baBOOM.
Here are some examples from the sonnets:
When I / do COUNT / the CLOCK / that TELLS / the TIME (Sonnet 12)
When IN / dis GRACE / with FOR / tune AND / men’s EYES
I ALL / a LONE / be WEEP / my OUT/ cast STATE (Sonnet 29)
Shall I / com PARE/ thee TO / a SUM / mer’s DAY?
Thou ART / more LOVE / ly AND / more TEM / per ATE (Sonnet 18)
Shakespeare’s plays are also written primarily in iambic pentameter, but the lines are unrhymed and not grouped into stanzas. Unrhymed iambic pentameter is called blank verse. It should be noted that there are also many prose passages in Shakespeare’s plays and some lines of trochaic tetrameter, such as the Witches' speeches in Macbeth.
Mabillard, Amanda. Shakespearean Sonnet Basics: Iambic Pentameter and the English Sonnet Style. Shakespeare Online. 20 Aug. 2000.
(January 25, 2012) < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/sonnetstyle.html >.
Sir Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey
Soldier, courtier from the time of his youth. In and out of favor with King Henry Vlll. He was an admirer of Wyatt. His is the first English blank verse: no rhyme and no iambic pentameter. Perhaps derived from Italian poetry in the same meter, used for his translations of Virgil's Aeneid. The first part of it is a sort of sonnet. His sonnets lack the experimental vigor of Wyatt's. They are marked instead by:
- the smoothness and sophistication in handling the form used later by Shakespeare
- the balance and measure of syntax and verse unit
- the absorption of classical styles and their lessons for English
- a direct precursor of Sir Philip Sidney
"A Lover's Vow"
Set me wheras the sonne dothe perche the grene,
Or whear his beames may not dissolue the ise, In temprat heat, wheare he is felt and sene; With prowde people, in presence sad4 and wyse; Set me in base, or yet in highe degree; In the long night, or in the shortyst day; In clere weather, or whear mysts thickest be; In lofte yowthe, or when my heares be grey; Set me in earthe, in heauen, or yet in hell; In hill, in dale, or in the fowming floode; Thrawle, or at large, aliue whersoo I dwell; Sike, or in healthe; in yll fame, or in good; Yours will I be, and with that onely thought Comfort my self when that my hape is nowght. |
Traditional Wedding Vows
"I, (Name),
Take you, (Name), To be my (wife/husband); To have and to hold, From this day forward, For better, for worse, For richer, for poorer, In sickness and in health, To love and to cherish, 'Till death do us part." (or, "As long as we both shall live.") |
Poetic Device: Antithesis
Definition of Antithesis Literary Term: Words and phrases with opposite meanings are balanced against each other.
An example of antithesis is "To err is human, to forgive, divine." by Alexander Pope which illustrates an example of antithesis with words and phrases with opposite meanings balanced against each other.
In "A Lover's Vow," Howard uses the poetic device of antithesis in order to explain the extent of his love. By balancing opposites, like age and youth, heat and cold, heaven or hell, he is stating that in the extremes of life and every scenario in between, he will always be true to his vow to love her. The meaning is the same in traditional wedding vows. These vows use antithesis to demonstrate the strength of their promise to love one another in all situations.
An example of antithesis is "To err is human, to forgive, divine." by Alexander Pope which illustrates an example of antithesis with words and phrases with opposite meanings balanced against each other.
In "A Lover's Vow," Howard uses the poetic device of antithesis in order to explain the extent of his love. By balancing opposites, like age and youth, heat and cold, heaven or hell, he is stating that in the extremes of life and every scenario in between, he will always be true to his vow to love her. The meaning is the same in traditional wedding vows. These vows use antithesis to demonstrate the strength of their promise to love one another in all situations.
"Alas, So All Things Now Do Hold Their Peace"
Alas! so all things now do hold their peace,
Heaven and earth disturbed in nothing. The beasts, the air, the birds their song do cease, The night's chare the stars about doth bring. Calm is the sea, the waves work less and less: So am not I, whom love, alas, doth wring, Bringing before my face the great increase Of my desires, whereat I weep and sing In joy and woe, as in a doubtful ease. For my sweet thoughts sometime do pleasure bring, But by and by the cause of my disease Gives me a pang that inwardly doth sting, When that I think what grief it is again To live and lack the thing should rid my pain. |
Other Poems
"When I was Fair and Young," by Queen Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I
(1533 - 1603) This poem is found with many variations in five manuscripts. We follow Leicester Bradner, The Poems of Queen Elizabeth, in using the British Museum's Harleian 7392 as the basis for our text. The Bodleian Library's Rawlinson manuscript, written between 1590 and 1600, also contains a version of the poem and states, furthermore, that it was written when Elizabeth "was suposed to be in love with mounsyre," that is, her French suitor, the duke of Anjou. Some modern scholars doubt that Elizabeth wrote the poem, but all accept it as an important cultural document about her. "Elizabeth 1: When I Was Fair and Young." Home | W. W. Norton & Company. Web. 09 Jan. 2012. <http://www.wwnorton.com/college /english/nap/When_I_Was_Fair_and_Young_Elizabeth.htm>. |
"When I Was Fair and Young"
When I was fair and young, then favor graced me.
Of many was I sought their mistress for to be, But I did scorn them all and answered them therefore: Go, go, go, seek some other where, importune me no more. How many weeping eyes I made to pine in woe, How many sighing hearts I have not skill to show, But I the prouder grew and still this spake therefore: Go, go, go, seek some other where, importune me no more. Then spake fair Venus' son, that brave victorious boy, 10 Saying: You dainty dame, for that you be so coy, I will so pluck your plumes as you shall say no more: Go, go, go, seek some other where, importune me no more. As soon as he had said, such change grew in my breast That neither night nor day I could take any rest. Wherefore I did repent that I had said before: Go, go, go, seek some other where, importune me no more. |
Poetic Device: Refrain
Refrain: the Repetition of one or more lines in each Stanza of a poem.
In "When I Was Fair and Young," the speaker of the poem repeats the refrain "Go, go, go, seek some other where, importune me no more." We know that this is a refrain because it is in each stanza, and also the last line of each stanza. The line remains the same, but the sentiment behind it and the person uttering it changes. In stanzas
In "When I Was Fair and Young," the speaker of the poem repeats the refrain "Go, go, go, seek some other where, importune me no more." We know that this is a refrain because it is in each stanza, and also the last line of each stanza. The line remains the same, but the sentiment behind it and the person uttering it changes. In stanzas
Sir Walter Raleigh:
"Remember, that if thou marry for beauty, thou bindest thyself all thy life for that which perchance will neither last nor please thee one year; and when thou hast it, it will be to thee of no price at all; for the desire dieth when it is attained, and the affection perisheth when it is satisfied."
Sir Walter Raleigh
Raleigh was an adventurer, courtier to Elizabeth I, navigator, author and poet.M Walter Raleigh (also spelled Ralegh) was born into a well-connected gentry family at Hayes Barton in Devon in around 1552. He attended Oxford University for a time, fought with the Huguenots in France and later studied law in London.
In 1578, Raleigh sailed to America with explorer Sir Humphrey Gilbert, his half brother. This expedition may have stimulated his plan to found a colony there. In 1585, he sponsored the first English colony in America on Roanoke Island (now North Carolina). The colony failed and another attempt at colonization also failed in 1587. Raleigh has been credited with bringing potatoes and tobacco back to Britain, although both of these were already known via the Spanish. Raleigh did help to make smoking popular at court.
Raleigh first came to the attention of Elizabeth I in 1580, when he went to Ireland to help suppress an uprising in Munster. He soon became a favorite of the queen, and was knighted and appointed captain of the Queen's Guard (1587). He became a member of parliament in 1584 and received extensive estates in Ireland.
In 1592, the queen discovered Raleigh's secret marriage to one of her maids of honor, Elizabeth Throckmorton. This discovery threw Elizabeth into a jealous rage and Raleigh and his wife were imprisoned in the Tower. On his release, in an attempt to find favor with the queen, he set off on an unsuccessful expedition to find El Dorado, the fabled 'Golden Land', rumored to be situated somewhere beyond the mouth of the Orinoco river in Guiana (now Venezuela).
Elizabeth's successor, James I of England and VI of Scotland, disliked Raleigh, and in 1603 he was accused of plotting against the king and sentenced to death. This was reduced to life imprisonment and Raleigh spent the next 12 years in the Tower of London, where he wrote the first volume of his 'History of the World' (1614).
In 1616, Raleigh was released to lead a second expedition to search for El Dorado. The expedition was a failure, and Raleigh also defied the king's instructions by attacking the Spanish. On his return to England, the death sentence was reinstated and Raleigh's execution took place on 29 October 1618.
"BBC - History - Historic Figures: Walter Raleigh (c.1552 - 1618)." BBC - Homepage. BBC. Web. 09 Jan. 2012. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/history
/historic_figures/raleigh_walter.shtml>.
Sir Walter Raleigh
Raleigh was an adventurer, courtier to Elizabeth I, navigator, author and poet.M Walter Raleigh (also spelled Ralegh) was born into a well-connected gentry family at Hayes Barton in Devon in around 1552. He attended Oxford University for a time, fought with the Huguenots in France and later studied law in London.
In 1578, Raleigh sailed to America with explorer Sir Humphrey Gilbert, his half brother. This expedition may have stimulated his plan to found a colony there. In 1585, he sponsored the first English colony in America on Roanoke Island (now North Carolina). The colony failed and another attempt at colonization also failed in 1587. Raleigh has been credited with bringing potatoes and tobacco back to Britain, although both of these were already known via the Spanish. Raleigh did help to make smoking popular at court.
Raleigh first came to the attention of Elizabeth I in 1580, when he went to Ireland to help suppress an uprising in Munster. He soon became a favorite of the queen, and was knighted and appointed captain of the Queen's Guard (1587). He became a member of parliament in 1584 and received extensive estates in Ireland.
In 1592, the queen discovered Raleigh's secret marriage to one of her maids of honor, Elizabeth Throckmorton. This discovery threw Elizabeth into a jealous rage and Raleigh and his wife were imprisoned in the Tower. On his release, in an attempt to find favor with the queen, he set off on an unsuccessful expedition to find El Dorado, the fabled 'Golden Land', rumored to be situated somewhere beyond the mouth of the Orinoco river in Guiana (now Venezuela).
Elizabeth's successor, James I of England and VI of Scotland, disliked Raleigh, and in 1603 he was accused of plotting against the king and sentenced to death. This was reduced to life imprisonment and Raleigh spent the next 12 years in the Tower of London, where he wrote the first volume of his 'History of the World' (1614).
In 1616, Raleigh was released to lead a second expedition to search for El Dorado. The expedition was a failure, and Raleigh also defied the king's instructions by attacking the Spanish. On his return to England, the death sentence was reinstated and Raleigh's execution took place on 29 October 1618.
"BBC - History - Historic Figures: Walter Raleigh (c.1552 - 1618)." BBC - Homepage. BBC. Web. 09 Jan. 2012. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/history
/historic_figures/raleigh_walter.shtml>.
Key Observations on "To Queen Elizabeth"
1. A Nod to Medieval Romance: Raleigh was known to be a chivalrous courtier. He is rumored to have thrown down his cloak over a puddle so that Queen Elizabeth did not muddy her shoes. This is just a rumor, but their is evidence of courtly love themes in this poem.
A. The Lady is on a Pedestal: Lines 15-18 state that "For knowing that I sue to serve / A saint of such perfection / As all desire, yet none deserve, / A place in her affection." Her saintliness and her perfection place her out of reach of all men because no man could ever deserve her, even Raleigh. In lines 23-24 Raleigh writes "Those desires that aim too high / For any mortal Lover," meaning that no mere mortal could ever woo her.
B. The Relationship will remain Platonic: Because she is so high above him, and because of his duty to her, he must suffer knowing that she will never return his affections.
2. Problems with Logic: Okay, so let's follow the logical line of Raleigh's reasoning
- If you have deep affections for someone, you are quiet about them like a flood
- If you have shallow affections for someone, you babble on about it
- He has been quiet about his love because his love is deep and his duty calls him to bravely keep it to himself
Question: Is writing five stanzas of poetry on how his passion is secret, like on line 36, actually keeping his emotions to himself, suffering with unrequited love without relief, and proving the depth of his love?
A. The Lady is on a Pedestal: Lines 15-18 state that "For knowing that I sue to serve / A saint of such perfection / As all desire, yet none deserve, / A place in her affection." Her saintliness and her perfection place her out of reach of all men because no man could ever deserve her, even Raleigh. In lines 23-24 Raleigh writes "Those desires that aim too high / For any mortal Lover," meaning that no mere mortal could ever woo her.
B. The Relationship will remain Platonic: Because she is so high above him, and because of his duty to her, he must suffer knowing that she will never return his affections.
2. Problems with Logic: Okay, so let's follow the logical line of Raleigh's reasoning
- If you have deep affections for someone, you are quiet about them like a flood
- If you have shallow affections for someone, you babble on about it
- He has been quiet about his love because his love is deep and his duty calls him to bravely keep it to himself
Question: Is writing five stanzas of poetry on how his passion is secret, like on line 36, actually keeping his emotions to himself, suffering with unrequited love without relief, and proving the depth of his love?
Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser (c. 1552 – 13 January 1599) was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognized as one of the premier craftsmen of Modern English verse in its infancy, and one of the greatest poets in the English language.
The Spenserian sonnet, invented by Edmund Spenser as an outgrowth of the stanza pattern he used in The Faerie Queene (a b a b b c b c c), has the pattern:
a b a b b c b c c d c d e e Here, the "abab" pattern sets up distinct four-line groups, each of which develops a specific idea; however, the overlapping a, b, c, and d rhymes form the first 12 lines into a single unit with a separated final couplet. The three quatrains then develop three distinct but closely related ideas, with a different idea (or commentary) in the couplet. Interestingly, Spenser often begins L9 of his sonnets with "But" or "Yet," indicating a volta exactly where it would occur in the Italian sonnet; however, if one looks closely, one often finds that the "turn" here really isn't one at all, that the actual turn occurs where the rhyme pattern changes, with the couplet, thus giving a 12 and 2 line pattern very different from the Italian 8 and 6 line pattern (actual volta marked by italics):
"Basic Sonnet Forms." Sonnet Central. Web. 10 Jan. 2012. <http://www.sonnets.org/basicforms.htm>.
The Spenserian sonnet, invented by Edmund Spenser as an outgrowth of the stanza pattern he used in The Faerie Queene (a b a b b c b c c), has the pattern:
a b a b b c b c c d c d e e Here, the "abab" pattern sets up distinct four-line groups, each of which develops a specific idea; however, the overlapping a, b, c, and d rhymes form the first 12 lines into a single unit with a separated final couplet. The three quatrains then develop three distinct but closely related ideas, with a different idea (or commentary) in the couplet. Interestingly, Spenser often begins L9 of his sonnets with "But" or "Yet," indicating a volta exactly where it would occur in the Italian sonnet; however, if one looks closely, one often finds that the "turn" here really isn't one at all, that the actual turn occurs where the rhyme pattern changes, with the couplet, thus giving a 12 and 2 line pattern very different from the Italian 8 and 6 line pattern (actual volta marked by italics):
"Basic Sonnet Forms." Sonnet Central. Web. 10 Jan. 2012. <http://www.sonnets.org/basicforms.htm>.
Sonnet 30
My love is like to ice, and I to fire:
How comes it then that this her cold so great Is not dissolved through my so hot desire, But harder grows the more I her entreat? Or how comes it that my exceeding heat Is not allayed by her heart-frozen cold, But that I burn much more in boiling sweat, And feel my flames augmented manifold? What more miraculous thing may be told, That fire, which all things melts, should harden ice, And ice, which is congeal's with senseless cold, Should kindle fire by wonderful device? Such is the power of love in gentle mind, That it can alter all the course of kind. |
Analysis of Sonnet 30 by Michael Pruchnicki
The speaker in Spenser's sonnet 'My Love Is Like to Ice' is the mask the poet adopts, using an ancient rhetorical device. The poet and the speaker (or persona, which literally means 'mask') are not necessarily one and the same. You can consider it the perceiving consciousness, if you prefer; the main thing is to avoid the confusion and misunderstanding that accompanies the error. Please remember that a poet like Spenser was always in complete control of his subject. He was not given to flights of fancy in any way whatsoever!
The poem is a sonnet grouped into three quatrains and a couplet. The rhyme scheme of the first quatrain is ABAB / fire, great, desire, entreat; the second is BCBC / heat, cold, sweat, manifold; the third rhymes CDCD / told, ice, cold, device; and the couplet rhymes EE / mind, kind. The rhyme includes near rhyme in great/entreat and heat/sweat. Keep in mind that in Spenser's day, poetry was considered a rhetorical game more often than not. The first line is a simile that compares his love/beloved one to ice and the speaker to a fire that for some reason does not thaw his frozen love. The more he pursues her, the faster she flees (the colder she gets!) . There is a 'law of contraries' being created here that defies natural law - those laws like gravity that operate on one and all in normal circumstances. But these are NOT normal times, the speaker alleges. This is a time for miracles in the realm of romance. We are in a foreign place where the usual laws do not apply. The couplet resolves the dilemma by sleight of language - the power of love can overrule natural love and change our very nature. Our 'kind' (mankind) can be changed to its very core. Pruchnicki, Michael. "My Love Is Like To Ice by Edmund Spenser." PoemHunter.Com - Thousands of Poems and Poets.. Poetry Search Engine. 30 Sept. 2009. Web. 10 Jan. 2012. <http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/my-love-is-like-to-ice/>. |
Sonnet 75
One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away: Again I wrote it with a second hand, But came the tide, and made my pains his prey. Vain man, said she, that doest in vain assay A mortal thing so to immortalize, For I myself shall like to this decay, And eek my name be wiped out likewise. Not so (quoth I), let baser things devise To die in dust, but you shall live by fame: My verse your virtues rare shall eternize, And in the heavens write your glorious name. Where, whenas Death shall all the world subdue, Out love shall live, and later life renew. |
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Spenser's Sonnet 75 and Explanation/Analysis
Rhyme scheme/sonnet type: Spenserian sonnet (ABAB BCBC CDCD EE)
Meter check: iambic pentameter
This sonnet seems to be about the author’s attempts to immortalize his wife or the love of his life. Spenser starts the poem with a quatrain recalling an incident that could have happened any summer day at the seaside. He writes his love’s name in the sand at the beach, but the ocean’s waves wipe it away, just as time will destroy all man made things. The next quatrain describes the woman’s reaction to the man’s charming attempt to immortalize her. She claims that the man’s attempts were in vain and that no mortal being can be immortalized due to the cruelness of time. The next quatrain represents a turning point in the poem and the author reveals that his wife will be eternally remembered in his poems and his verse. The final couplet at the end, “Where whenas Death shall all the world subdue, Out love shall live, and later life renew,” summarizes the theme of the poem by comparing the eternalness of love and death to the brevity of life and humanity.
Spenser uses the rhyme scheme of this poem to create a contrast between earthly ideas and objects that will eventually be destroyed and heavenly ones that will last forever. The first two quatrains focus on the author’s vain attempts to write his wife’s name. Time and nature are shown to destroy the author’s manmade works and his attempts are thwarted. The author then switches gears and shows how he immortalized his wife in the very poem he is writing. Spenser uses a very melodic rhythm and iambic pentameter to create a calm and pleasant sounding poem. His frequent use of alliteration such as, “die in dust” and, “verse in virtue” helps to paint the complete picture of the poem and tie the themes of the poem together.
Posted by plj1280 at 10:56 PM
Meter check: iambic pentameter
This sonnet seems to be about the author’s attempts to immortalize his wife or the love of his life. Spenser starts the poem with a quatrain recalling an incident that could have happened any summer day at the seaside. He writes his love’s name in the sand at the beach, but the ocean’s waves wipe it away, just as time will destroy all man made things. The next quatrain describes the woman’s reaction to the man’s charming attempt to immortalize her. She claims that the man’s attempts were in vain and that no mortal being can be immortalized due to the cruelness of time. The next quatrain represents a turning point in the poem and the author reveals that his wife will be eternally remembered in his poems and his verse. The final couplet at the end, “Where whenas Death shall all the world subdue, Out love shall live, and later life renew,” summarizes the theme of the poem by comparing the eternalness of love and death to the brevity of life and humanity.
Spenser uses the rhyme scheme of this poem to create a contrast between earthly ideas and objects that will eventually be destroyed and heavenly ones that will last forever. The first two quatrains focus on the author’s vain attempts to write his wife’s name. Time and nature are shown to destroy the author’s manmade works and his attempts are thwarted. The author then switches gears and shows how he immortalized his wife in the very poem he is writing. Spenser uses a very melodic rhythm and iambic pentameter to create a calm and pleasant sounding poem. His frequent use of alliteration such as, “die in dust” and, “verse in virtue” helps to paint the complete picture of the poem and tie the themes of the poem together.
Posted by plj1280 at 10:56 PM
Are Shakespeare's Sonnets Autobiographical?
An excerpt from Shakespeare's Sonnets. Ed. W. J. Rolfe. New York: American Book Company, 1905.
Are the Sonnets, wholly or in part, autobiographical, or are they merely "poetical exercises" dealing with imaginary persons and experiences? This is the question to which all others relating to the poems are secondary and subordinate.
For myself, I firmly believe that the great majority of the Sonnets, to quote what Wordsworth says of them, "express Shakespeare's own feelings in his own person;" or, as he says in his sonnet on the sonnet, "with this same key Shakespeare unlocked his heart." Browning, quoting this, asks: "Did Shakespeare? If so, the less Shakespeare he!" to which Swinburne replies, "No whit the less like Shakespeare, but undoubtedly the less like Browning."
The theory that the Sonnets are mere exercises of fancy, "the free outcome of a poetic imagination," as Delius phrases it, is easy and specious at first, but lands us at last among worse perplexities than it evades. That Shakespeare, for example, should write seventeen sonnets urging a young man to marry and perpetuate his family is strange enough, but that he should select such a theme as the fictitious basis for seventeen sonnets is stranger yet; and the same may be said of the story or stories apparently underlying other of the poems. Some critics, indeed, who take them to be thus artificially inspired, have been compelled to regard them as "satirical" — intended to ridicule the sonneteers of the time, especially Drayton and Sir John Davies of Hereford. Others, like Professor Minto, who believe the first 126 to be personal, regard the rest as "exercises of skill, undertaken in a spirit of wanton defiance and derision of commonplace." The poems, to quote Dowden, "are in the taste of the time; less extravagant and less full of conceits than many other Elizabethan collections, more distinguished by exquisite imagination and all that betokens genuine feeling. . . . All that is quaint or contorted or 'conceited' in them can be paralleled from passages of early plays of Shakespeare, such as Romeo and Juliet, and the Two Gentlemen of Verona, where assuredly no satirical intention is discoverable."
If the Sonnets were mostly written before 1598 when Meres refers to them, or 1599 when Jaggard printed two of them, or in 1593 and 1594, as Sidney Lee assumes, and if most of them, as the same critic believes, were "little more than professional trials of skill, often of superlative merit, to which the poet deemed himself challenged by the efforts of contemporary practitioners," it is passing strange that Shakespeare should not have published them ten or fifteen years before they were brought out by the pirate Thorpe. He must have written them for publication if that was their character, and the extraordinary popularity of his earlier poems would have assured them a favourable reception with the public. His fellow-townsman and friend, Richard Field, who had published the Venus and Adonis in 1593 and the Lucrece in 1594, and who must have known of the circulation of the sonnets in manuscript, would have urged him to publish them; or, if the author had declined to have them printed, some pirate, like Jaggard or Thorpe, would have done it long before 1609. Mr. Lee tells us that Sidney, Watson, Daniel, and Constable circulated their sonnets for a time in manuscript, but he tells us also that the pirates generally got hold of them and published them within a few years if the authors did not do it. But the history of The Passionate Pilgrim shows that it was not so easy to obtain copies of Shakespeare's sonnets for publication. It was the success of Venus and Adonis and Lucrece (the fourth edition of the former being issued in 1599, and the second of the latter in 1598) which prompted Jaggard to compile The Passionate Pilgrim in 1599; and it is a significant fact that he was able to rake together only ten poems which can possibly be Shakespeare's, and three of these were from Love's Labour's Lost, which had been published in 1598. To these ten pieces he added ten others (eleven, as ordinarily printed) which he impudently called Shakespeare's, though we know that most of them were stolen and can trace some of them to the authors.
His book bears evidence in its very make-up that he was hard pushed to fill the pages and give the purchaser a tolerable sixpence-worth. The matter is printed on but one side of the leaf, and is further spun out by putting a head-piece and tail-piece on every page, so that a dozen lines of text sandwiched between these convenient pictorial devices make as fair a show as double the quantity would ordinarily present.
Note, however, that, with all his pickings and stealings, Jaggard managed to secure but two of the sonnets, though a considerable number of them were probably in existence among the author's "private friends," as Meres expressed it a year before. The pirate Newman, in 1591, was able to print one hundred and eight sonnets by Sidney which had been circulated in manuscript, and to add to them twenty-eight by Daniel without the author's knowledge ; and sonnets by Watson and Constable, as Mr. Lee tells us, were similarly circulated and pirated. How, then, are we to explain the fact that Jaggard could obtain only two of Shakespeare's sonnets, five years or more after they had been circulating among his friends ? Is it not evident that the poems must have been carefully guarded by these friends on account of their personal and private character? A dozen more of those sonnets would have filled out Jaggard's "larcenous bundle of verse," and have obviated the necessity of pilfering from Barnfield, Griffin, Marlowe, and the rest; but at the time they were in such close confidential keeping that he could get no copies of them. In the course of years they were shown to a larger and larger number of "private friends," and with the multiplication of copies the chances of their getting outside of that confidential circle were proportionally increased. We need not be surprised, then, that a decade later somebody had succeeded in obtaining copies of them all, and sold the collection to Thorpe.
Even if we suppose that the Sonnets had been impersonal, and that Shakespeare for some reason that we cannot guess had wished to withhold them from the press, we may be sure that he could not have done it in that day of imperfect copyright restrictions. Nothing could have kept a hundred and fifty poems by so popular an author out of print if there had not been strong personal reasons for maintaining their privacy. At least seven editions of the Venus and Adonis and four of the Lucrece appeared before Thorpe was able to secure "copy" for his edition of the Sonnets.
If, as Mr. Lee asserts, Southampton was the patron to whom twenty that may be called "dedicatory" sonnets (23, 26, 32, 37, 38, 69, 77-86, 100, 101, 103, and 106) are addressed, it is all the more remarkable that Shakespeare should not have published them, or, if he hesitated to do it, that his noble patron should not have urged it. He had already dedicated both the Venus and Adonis and the Lucrece to Southampton; and Mr. Lee says that "three of the twenty dedicatory sonnets [26, 32, 38] merely translate into the language of poetry the expressions of devotion which had already done duty in the dedicatory epistle in verse that precedes Lucrece." Other sonnet-sequences of the time (including the four mentioned by Mr. Lee as pirated while circulated in manuscript, except Sidney's, which were not thus published until after his death) were brought out by their authors, with dedications to noble lords or ladies. Shakespeare's Sonnets, so far as I am aware, are the only exception to the rule.
Mr. Lee himself admits that "at a first glance a far larger proportion of Shakespeare's sonnets give the reader the illusion of personal confessions than those of any contemporary;" and elsewhere he recognizes in them more "intensity" than appears in the earlier poems except in "occasional utterances" of Lucrece; but, for all that, he would have us believe that they are not personal, and that their "superior and more evenly sustained energy is to be attributed, not to the accession of power that comes with increase of years, but to the innate principles of the poetic form, and to metrical exigencies which impelled the sonneteer to aim at a uniform condensation of thought and language." I cannot help agreeing with those who regard their personal character as no "illusion," and who believe that they clearly show the increase of power which comes with years, their true date probably being 1597-98 rather than 1593-94.
For myself, I could as soon believe the penitential psalms of David to be purely rhetorical and fictitious as the 129th Sonnet, than which no more remorseful utterance was ever wrung from a soul that had tasted the ashes to which the Sodom-apples of illicit love are turned in the end. Have we there nothing but the "admirable fooling" of the actor masquerading in the garb of the penitent, or the satirist mimicking the conceits and affectations of the sonneteers of the time? If this is supposed to be the counterfeit of feeling, I can only exclaim with Leonato in Much Ado, "O God! Counterfeit! There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion!"
How to cite this article:
Rolfe, W. J. Ed. Are Shakespeare's Sonnets Autobiographical? From Shakespeare's Sonnets. New York: American Book Company, 1905. Shakespeare
Online. 20 Aug. 2009. (date when you accessed the information) < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/sonnetsautobio.html >.
Are the Sonnets, wholly or in part, autobiographical, or are they merely "poetical exercises" dealing with imaginary persons and experiences? This is the question to which all others relating to the poems are secondary and subordinate.
For myself, I firmly believe that the great majority of the Sonnets, to quote what Wordsworth says of them, "express Shakespeare's own feelings in his own person;" or, as he says in his sonnet on the sonnet, "with this same key Shakespeare unlocked his heart." Browning, quoting this, asks: "Did Shakespeare? If so, the less Shakespeare he!" to which Swinburne replies, "No whit the less like Shakespeare, but undoubtedly the less like Browning."
The theory that the Sonnets are mere exercises of fancy, "the free outcome of a poetic imagination," as Delius phrases it, is easy and specious at first, but lands us at last among worse perplexities than it evades. That Shakespeare, for example, should write seventeen sonnets urging a young man to marry and perpetuate his family is strange enough, but that he should select such a theme as the fictitious basis for seventeen sonnets is stranger yet; and the same may be said of the story or stories apparently underlying other of the poems. Some critics, indeed, who take them to be thus artificially inspired, have been compelled to regard them as "satirical" — intended to ridicule the sonneteers of the time, especially Drayton and Sir John Davies of Hereford. Others, like Professor Minto, who believe the first 126 to be personal, regard the rest as "exercises of skill, undertaken in a spirit of wanton defiance and derision of commonplace." The poems, to quote Dowden, "are in the taste of the time; less extravagant and less full of conceits than many other Elizabethan collections, more distinguished by exquisite imagination and all that betokens genuine feeling. . . . All that is quaint or contorted or 'conceited' in them can be paralleled from passages of early plays of Shakespeare, such as Romeo and Juliet, and the Two Gentlemen of Verona, where assuredly no satirical intention is discoverable."
If the Sonnets were mostly written before 1598 when Meres refers to them, or 1599 when Jaggard printed two of them, or in 1593 and 1594, as Sidney Lee assumes, and if most of them, as the same critic believes, were "little more than professional trials of skill, often of superlative merit, to which the poet deemed himself challenged by the efforts of contemporary practitioners," it is passing strange that Shakespeare should not have published them ten or fifteen years before they were brought out by the pirate Thorpe. He must have written them for publication if that was their character, and the extraordinary popularity of his earlier poems would have assured them a favourable reception with the public. His fellow-townsman and friend, Richard Field, who had published the Venus and Adonis in 1593 and the Lucrece in 1594, and who must have known of the circulation of the sonnets in manuscript, would have urged him to publish them; or, if the author had declined to have them printed, some pirate, like Jaggard or Thorpe, would have done it long before 1609. Mr. Lee tells us that Sidney, Watson, Daniel, and Constable circulated their sonnets for a time in manuscript, but he tells us also that the pirates generally got hold of them and published them within a few years if the authors did not do it. But the history of The Passionate Pilgrim shows that it was not so easy to obtain copies of Shakespeare's sonnets for publication. It was the success of Venus and Adonis and Lucrece (the fourth edition of the former being issued in 1599, and the second of the latter in 1598) which prompted Jaggard to compile The Passionate Pilgrim in 1599; and it is a significant fact that he was able to rake together only ten poems which can possibly be Shakespeare's, and three of these were from Love's Labour's Lost, which had been published in 1598. To these ten pieces he added ten others (eleven, as ordinarily printed) which he impudently called Shakespeare's, though we know that most of them were stolen and can trace some of them to the authors.
His book bears evidence in its very make-up that he was hard pushed to fill the pages and give the purchaser a tolerable sixpence-worth. The matter is printed on but one side of the leaf, and is further spun out by putting a head-piece and tail-piece on every page, so that a dozen lines of text sandwiched between these convenient pictorial devices make as fair a show as double the quantity would ordinarily present.
Note, however, that, with all his pickings and stealings, Jaggard managed to secure but two of the sonnets, though a considerable number of them were probably in existence among the author's "private friends," as Meres expressed it a year before. The pirate Newman, in 1591, was able to print one hundred and eight sonnets by Sidney which had been circulated in manuscript, and to add to them twenty-eight by Daniel without the author's knowledge ; and sonnets by Watson and Constable, as Mr. Lee tells us, were similarly circulated and pirated. How, then, are we to explain the fact that Jaggard could obtain only two of Shakespeare's sonnets, five years or more after they had been circulating among his friends ? Is it not evident that the poems must have been carefully guarded by these friends on account of their personal and private character? A dozen more of those sonnets would have filled out Jaggard's "larcenous bundle of verse," and have obviated the necessity of pilfering from Barnfield, Griffin, Marlowe, and the rest; but at the time they were in such close confidential keeping that he could get no copies of them. In the course of years they were shown to a larger and larger number of "private friends," and with the multiplication of copies the chances of their getting outside of that confidential circle were proportionally increased. We need not be surprised, then, that a decade later somebody had succeeded in obtaining copies of them all, and sold the collection to Thorpe.
Even if we suppose that the Sonnets had been impersonal, and that Shakespeare for some reason that we cannot guess had wished to withhold them from the press, we may be sure that he could not have done it in that day of imperfect copyright restrictions. Nothing could have kept a hundred and fifty poems by so popular an author out of print if there had not been strong personal reasons for maintaining their privacy. At least seven editions of the Venus and Adonis and four of the Lucrece appeared before Thorpe was able to secure "copy" for his edition of the Sonnets.
If, as Mr. Lee asserts, Southampton was the patron to whom twenty that may be called "dedicatory" sonnets (23, 26, 32, 37, 38, 69, 77-86, 100, 101, 103, and 106) are addressed, it is all the more remarkable that Shakespeare should not have published them, or, if he hesitated to do it, that his noble patron should not have urged it. He had already dedicated both the Venus and Adonis and the Lucrece to Southampton; and Mr. Lee says that "three of the twenty dedicatory sonnets [26, 32, 38] merely translate into the language of poetry the expressions of devotion which had already done duty in the dedicatory epistle in verse that precedes Lucrece." Other sonnet-sequences of the time (including the four mentioned by Mr. Lee as pirated while circulated in manuscript, except Sidney's, which were not thus published until after his death) were brought out by their authors, with dedications to noble lords or ladies. Shakespeare's Sonnets, so far as I am aware, are the only exception to the rule.
Mr. Lee himself admits that "at a first glance a far larger proportion of Shakespeare's sonnets give the reader the illusion of personal confessions than those of any contemporary;" and elsewhere he recognizes in them more "intensity" than appears in the earlier poems except in "occasional utterances" of Lucrece; but, for all that, he would have us believe that they are not personal, and that their "superior and more evenly sustained energy is to be attributed, not to the accession of power that comes with increase of years, but to the innate principles of the poetic form, and to metrical exigencies which impelled the sonneteer to aim at a uniform condensation of thought and language." I cannot help agreeing with those who regard their personal character as no "illusion," and who believe that they clearly show the increase of power which comes with years, their true date probably being 1597-98 rather than 1593-94.
For myself, I could as soon believe the penitential psalms of David to be purely rhetorical and fictitious as the 129th Sonnet, than which no more remorseful utterance was ever wrung from a soul that had tasted the ashes to which the Sodom-apples of illicit love are turned in the end. Have we there nothing but the "admirable fooling" of the actor masquerading in the garb of the penitent, or the satirist mimicking the conceits and affectations of the sonneteers of the time? If this is supposed to be the counterfeit of feeling, I can only exclaim with Leonato in Much Ado, "O God! Counterfeit! There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion!"
How to cite this article:
Rolfe, W. J. Ed. Are Shakespeare's Sonnets Autobiographical? From Shakespeare's Sonnets. New York: American Book Company, 1905. Shakespeare
Online. 20 Aug. 2009. (date when you accessed the information) < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/sonnetsautobio.html >.
Sonnet 18
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed; But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st, Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade, When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st. So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. |
SONNET 29 & PARAPHRASE
When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries And look upon myself and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd, Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee, and then my state, Like to the lark at break of day arising For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings. |
When I’ve fallen out of favor with fortune and men,
All alone I weep over my position as a social outcast, And pray to heaven, but my cries go unheard, And I look at myself, cursing my fate, Wishing I were like one who had more hope, Wishing I looked like him; wishing I were surrounded by friends, Wishing I had this man's skill and that man's freedom. I am least contented with what I used to enjoy most. But, with these thoughts – almost despising myself, I, by chance, think of you and then my melancholy Like the lark at the break of day, rises From sullen earth, For thinking of your love brings such happiness That then I would not change my position in life with kings. |
"Analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnet 29." Shakespeare Online. Web. 11 Jan. 2012. <http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/29detail.html>.
SONNET 30 & PARAPHRASE
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste: Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe, And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight: Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restored and sorrows end. |
When in these sessions of gratifying silent thought
I think of the past, I lament my failure to achieve all that I wanted, And I sorrowfully remember that I wasted the best years of my life: Then I can cry, although I am not used to crying, For dear friends now hid in death's unending night, And cry again over woes that were long since healed, And lament the loss of many things that I have seen and loved: Then can I grieve over past griefs again, And sadly repeat (to myself) my woes Which (the account) I repay as if I had not paid before. But if I think of you while I am in this state of sadness, dear friend, All my losses are compensated for and my sorrow ends. |
"Analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnet 30 - When to the Sessions of Sweet Silent Thought." Shakespeare Online. Web. 13 Jan. 2012.
<http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/30detail.html>.
<http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/30detail.html>.
SONNET 71 & PARAPHRASE
No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Then you shall hear the surly sullen bell Give warning to the world that I am fled From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell: Nay, if you read this line, remember not The hand that writ it; for I love you so That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot If thinking on me then should make you woe. O, if, I say, you look upon this verse When I perhaps compounded am with clay, Do not so much as my poor name rehearse. But let your love even with my life decay, Lest the wise world should look into your moan And mock you with me after I am gone. |
You can mourn for me when I am dead, but no longer
Than when you hear the solemn-sounding bell Announce to the world that I have gone From this vile world, to live with the worms (in the grave): If you read this line, do not remember The hand that wrote it; for I love you so much That I would rather you forget me completely If thinking about me when I am gone would make you upset. O, if you look upon this sonnet When my body has become mixed with the dust and dirt, Do not even mention my insignificant name. But let your love decay in the same way that my life rots away, So that the malicious people in world do not pry into your grief And use your relationship with me to mock you after I am dead. |
"Analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnet 71 - No Longer Mourn for Me When I Am Dead." Shakespeare Online. Web. 13 Jan. 2012. <http://www.shakespeare-
online.com/sonnets/71detail.html>.
online.com/sonnets/71detail.html>.
Sonnet 116 & Paraphrase
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come: Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved. |
Let me not declare any reasons why two
True-minded people should not be married. Love is not love Which changes when it finds a change in circumstances, Or bends from its firm stand even when a lover is unfaithful: Oh no! it is a lighthouse That sees storms but it never shaken; Love is the guiding north star to every lost ship, Whose value cannot be calculated, although its altitude can be measured. Love is not at the mercy of Time, though physical beauty Comes within the compass of his sickle. Love does not alter with hours and weeks, But, rather, it endures until the last day of life. If I am proved wrong about these thoughts on love Then I recant all that I have written, and no man has ever [truly] loved. |
An Article Analyzing Sonnet 116
Sonnet 116 is about love in its most ideal form. It is praising the glories of lovers who have come to each other freely, and enter into a relationship based on trust and understanding. The first four lines reveal the poet's pleasure in love that is constant and strong, and will not "alter when it alteration finds." The following lines proclaim that true love is indeed an "ever-fix'd mark" which will survive any crisis. In lines 7-8, the poet claims that we may be able to measure love to some degree, but this does not mean we fully understand it. Love's actual worth cannot be known – it remains a mystery. The remaining lines of the third quatrain (9-12), reaffirm the perfect nature of love that is unshakeable throughout time and remains so "ev'n to the edge of doom", or death.
In the final couplet, the poet declares that, if he is mistaken about the constant, unmovable nature of perfect love, then he must take back all his writings on love, truth, and faith. Moreover, he adds that, if he has in fact judged love inappropriately, no man has ever really loved, in the ideal sense that the poet professes. The details of Sonnet 116 are best described by Tucker Brooke in his acclaimed edition of Shakespeare's poems:
[In Sonnet 116] the chief pause in sense is after the twelfth line. Seventy-five per cent of the words are monosyllables; only three contain more syllables than two; none belong in any degree to the vocabulary of 'poetic' diction. There is nothing recondite, exotic, or metaphysical in the thought. There are three run-on lines, one pair of double-endings. There is nothing to remark about the rhyming except the happy blending of open and closed vowels, and of liquids, nasals, and stops; nothing to say about the harmony except to point out how the fluttering accents in the quatrains give place in the couplet to the emphatic march of the almost unrelieved iambic feet. In short, the poet has employed one hundred and ten of the simplest words in the language and the two simplest rhyme-schemes to produce a poem which has about it no strangeness whatever except the strangeness of perfection. (Brooke, 234)
_______
References
Shakespeare, William. Shakespeare's Sonnets. Ed. Tucker Brooke. London: Oxford UP: 1936.
Shakespeare, William. Shakespeare's Sonnets. Ed. A.L. Rowse. London: Macmillan, 1964.
Shakespeare, William. The Works of Shakespeare. Ed. John Dover Wilson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1969.
Smith, Hallett. The Tension of the Lyre. San Marino: Huntington Library, 1981.
Spender, Stephen. The Riddle of Shakespeare's Sonnets. New York: Basic Books, 1962.
Tucker, T.G. The Sonnets of Shakespeare. Cambridge: UP, 1924.
How to Cite this Article
Mabillard, Amanda. An Analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnet 116. Shakespeare Online. 2000. (day/month/year you accessed the information) < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/116detail.html >.
In the final couplet, the poet declares that, if he is mistaken about the constant, unmovable nature of perfect love, then he must take back all his writings on love, truth, and faith. Moreover, he adds that, if he has in fact judged love inappropriately, no man has ever really loved, in the ideal sense that the poet professes. The details of Sonnet 116 are best described by Tucker Brooke in his acclaimed edition of Shakespeare's poems:
[In Sonnet 116] the chief pause in sense is after the twelfth line. Seventy-five per cent of the words are monosyllables; only three contain more syllables than two; none belong in any degree to the vocabulary of 'poetic' diction. There is nothing recondite, exotic, or metaphysical in the thought. There are three run-on lines, one pair of double-endings. There is nothing to remark about the rhyming except the happy blending of open and closed vowels, and of liquids, nasals, and stops; nothing to say about the harmony except to point out how the fluttering accents in the quatrains give place in the couplet to the emphatic march of the almost unrelieved iambic feet. In short, the poet has employed one hundred and ten of the simplest words in the language and the two simplest rhyme-schemes to produce a poem which has about it no strangeness whatever except the strangeness of perfection. (Brooke, 234)
_______
References
Shakespeare, William. Shakespeare's Sonnets. Ed. Tucker Brooke. London: Oxford UP: 1936.
Shakespeare, William. Shakespeare's Sonnets. Ed. A.L. Rowse. London: Macmillan, 1964.
Shakespeare, William. The Works of Shakespeare. Ed. John Dover Wilson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1969.
Smith, Hallett. The Tension of the Lyre. San Marino: Huntington Library, 1981.
Spender, Stephen. The Riddle of Shakespeare's Sonnets. New York: Basic Books, 1962.
Tucker, T.G. The Sonnets of Shakespeare. Cambridge: UP, 1924.
How to Cite this Article
Mabillard, Amanda. An Analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnet 116. Shakespeare Online. 2000. (day/month/year you accessed the information) < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/116detail.html >.
SONNET 130 PARAPHRASE
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damask'd, red and white, I have seen damask roses, red and white [streaked], But no such roses see I in her cheeks; But I do not see such colors in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delight And some perfumes give more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. Than the horrid breath of my mistress. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know I love to hear her speak, but I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound; That music has a more pleasing sound. I grant I never saw a goddess go; I've never seen a goddess walk; My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground: But I know that my mistress walks only on the ground. And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare And yet I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare. As any woman who has been misrepresented by ridiculous comparisons. |
My mistress's eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips; If snow is white, then her breasts are a brownish gray; If hairs are like wires, hers are black and not golden. |
And just for fun, a modern sonnet:
Terms to Know
Petrarchan Sonnet:
Shakespearean Sonnet: Octave: Sestet: Quatrain: Couplet: Metaphor: Extended Metaphor: |
Anthithesis:
Refrain: |