Sonnets

Sonnets are usually made up of three quatrains with alternated rhyme and a couplet with coupled rhyme. This final couplet may represent either a turning point or a summary of the content of the sonnet.

Edmund Spenser

LXXV: ONE DAY I WROTE HER NAME

The main theme of this sonnet is the passing of time. He tries tro write the name of his beloved on the sand, but either the waves or the tide always wash it away. His woman tells him that trying to immortalize an earthly thing is useless and that she is going to die, too, like all mortal things. He doesn't agree: in fact, he thinks that noble things must be remembered through the time by the poetry. So the woman and her beauty will be preserved by the poet's verse.

Unusual rhyme scheme: the rhyme is alternated, but in each quatrain there's a rhyme which appears also in the following quatrain.

Turning point: line 9.

William Shakespeare

XII: WHEN I DO COUNT THE CLOCK

In this sonnet, Shakespeare describes the passing of time through some images: the ticking clock, the day which is turning into night, the faded violet, the hair growing white, the bare trees and the sheaves borne on the bier. In the third quatrain, the poet realizes that even the fair youth is going to grow old and die (he is subdue to the time), and the only way to survive the time is to beget children, by whom to transmit his beauty.

Addressee: fair youth.

In the first line, you can almost hear the clock ticking through the allitteration of T and C.

Shakespeare wants the fair youth to get married so that there will be remembrances of him. His isn't a possessive love.

Turning points: line 9 and line 13.

XX: A WOMAN'S FACE, WITH NATURE'S OWN HAND PAINTED

In this sonnet, Shakespeare justifies his love for the young boy saying that he was first created as a woman (so he was meant to be a woman). He describes the qualities of the fair youth, which are the same as the women's without the weaknessess - he's more sincere and more steady, while women often change their minds and are false; both men and women like him. But he was so beautiful and nice that Nature fell in love with him, and, as she is a female, she turned him into a male (adding a thing which is useless to Shakespeare, as his is a Platonic love!). In the final couplet, he addresses the fair youth and declares him his Platonic love, as he knows that Nature created him for the women.

The sonnet begins in medias res.

There's the theme of masculine and feminine qualities all mixed up together, which is frequent in English literature.

The boy has the positive qualities of both men and women, but not the negative ones.

Reproaches (complaints?) against women were frequent in the Middle Ages.

XXX: WHEN TO THE SESSIONS OF SWEET SILENT THOUGHT

In this sonnet, Shakespeare says that when he thinks about the past he has many regrets: he hasn't got things he was after, he thinks he has wasted his time, and many friends of his died, so he cries, which he isn't used to. The poet keeps on moaning and grieving until he thinks about the fair youth, when all losses are restored and sorrows end, so the poet feels happy and all the pains disappear.

CXVI: LET ME NOT TO THE MARRIAGE OF TRUE MINDS

In this sonnet, Shakespeare says that to the marriage of faithful lovers there should be no obstacles. True love never changes and must overcome every difficulties; it is like the star that guides a wandering boat and its value cannot be known. It must be eternal and last till the end of time, even if the physical aspect may change as it is subdue to the time. If the poet is wrong about this, the he never wrote a line of poetry nor has any man ever loved.

Addressee: nobody particularly, maybe the fair youth.

Difficulty to give a positive definition of true love (it's described with negative definitions).

Turning point: there isn't any. the final couplet isn't in contrast with what has been said before.

CXXX: MY MISTRESS' EYES ARE NOTHING LIKE THE SUN

This is a pretty funny and ironic sonnet. In this sonnet, Shakespeare attacks the qualities of the typical stereotype of the women who are usually described in poetry, for example by Petrarch (Dolce Stil Novo). He compares his woman to the elements of nature and says she's not as beautiful as they are: he describes her eyes, her lips, her breasts, her hair, her cheeks, her breath, how she speaks and how she walks in a different way which is different from the previous poets' descriptions, in a more realistic way. In the final couplet, Shakespeare express his love for his woman (which might be unexpeted). In fact, he doesn't say she isn't nice; he simply says that she's a real woman, with imperfecions. she is worth as much as other women falsely described by poetry.

Addressee: the lady.

Shakespeare debunks the clichés of poetry.

Turning point: line 13.