Post by Daniel on Oct 22, 2009 4:38:32 GMT -5
The Italian Sonnet
Separated by an Octave and a Sestet
Generally contains a volta/turn in the 9th line
A problem is outlined in the Octave and the Solution is presented in the sestet.
The English / Shakespearean Sonnet
Separated by three Quatrains and a Rhyming Couplet
Generally contains a volta/turn in the third Quatrain
A different perspective or solution is produced in the final couplet.
On His Blindness
When I consider how my light is spent (a)
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, (b)
And that one talent which is death to hide, (b) l
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent (a) Octave
To serve therewith my Maker, and present (a) l
My true account, lest he returning chide; (b)
"Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?" (b)
I fondly ask; but Patience to prevent (a)
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need (c)
Either man's work or his own gifts; who best (d) l
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state (e) Sestet
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed (c) l
And post o'er land and ocean without rest; (d)
They also serve who only stand and wait." (e)
Sonnet 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds (a)
Admit impediments, love is not love (b)
Which alters when it alteration finds, (a) First Quatrain
Or bends with the remover to remove. (b)
O no, it is an ever fix-ed mark (c)
That looks on tempests and is never shaken; (d)
It is the star to every wand'ring bark, (c) Second Quatrain
Whose worth's unknown although his height be taken. (d)
Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks (e)
Within his bending sickle's compass come, (f)
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, (e) Third Quatrain
But bears it out even to the edge of doom: (f)
If this be error and upon me proved, (g) Final Couplet
I never writ, nor no man ever loved. (g)
Textual Analysis
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116 is an oft-cited Sonnet that captures contemporary notions of love. Indeed, such is its popularity that many believe it to have inspired the ceremonial marriage rites of western cultures wherein the bride and groom are asked ‘Do you take this man to be your lawful wedded husband, for richer or for poor, in sickness and in health, til death do you part?’ .
The Sonnet opens with the poet invoking the word of marriage, and so reveals almonst instantly the primary topic of the sonnet: true love. He begins by telling us what love is not, namely it does not ‘alter’ when it finds ‘alterations’ and that it doesn’t ‘bend’ when someone is trying to break or remove it. The second quartrain moves the poem into discussing what love is,namely that love is a constant ‘mark’ that experiences storms and dangers but can never be moved or ‘shaken’, despite us not knowing the true ‘worth’ or value of love. Finally, the poet moves past wordly impediments and characteristics of love and settles on addressing time, the biggest threat to love. And yet the poet believes that whilst mortality falls under the dominion of time, love is everlasting and lives on even to the end. The final couplet offers a solution to the question of love and the imminence of time: he says if what he thinks about love is wrong, then he never wrote and no man ever loved. This is rhetorical and an almost parodoxical argument because we are reading what the poet wrote, so we know he has written, and so he is saying he cannot be wrong, and so love must last forever because you are reading his writing.
In many ways Shakespeare’s sonnet mirrors the traditional and often stereotypical course of love whilst offering a solution in the final couplet. We could track the sonnet through the stages of a relationship; the fiery early period of arguments and fault-finding; ; the devoted and loving middle period of marriage and family; and the worried and time-haunted final period of a relationship before death. In this sense, Shakespeare’s writing is designed to comfort the reader by saying ‘Though you will die and lose the person you love, love lives on until the end of the world. You experience the eternal’, and this thought is what makes the poem an enduring dedication to everlasting love.
Personal Response Analysis
I remember reading this poem when I was 16 in the house of a girlfriend’s parents. Her parents had recently got divorced and reading this poem struck me then and strikes me now as profoundly sad and tragic in its idealism. The opening quatrain tells us not to allow obstacles to block the ‘marriage of true minds’, that love does not alter or ‘bend’ when someone is trying to break it. And yet, the opening quatrain troubled me. On the one hand, throughout Shakespeare’s writing, he positions love as some spiritual, ethereal quality and yet he initially tells us it is of the mind, that it is somehow rational. Indeed,Shakespeare returns to this mystical conception of love in the second quatrain when he describes love as having a worth ‘unknown’. There is therefore a conflict within the poem itself because on the one hand, Shakespeare is telling us ‘This is what love is. It shouldn’t be this, it should be this’ but on the other hand is’s telling us love is mysterious and that we don’t know the true value of love. So we are moved to ask, if we don’t know the value of true love, how does Shakespeare?
The third quatrain introduces another problem into the poet’s predicament: he tells us that whilst mortality falls within Time’s ‘bending sickle’, that love does not change and exists’even to the edge of doom’. The problem here is that Shakespeare initially positions love as being ‘the marriage of true minds’, which is to say the union of two mortal minds, and then tells us that after the owners of these minds die that love somehow carries on. Finally, the final Couplet makes a profoundly immature argument that is essentially ; ‘If this is wrong, then I never wrote, but because you can see I wrote then I must be right!’. On the whole, it is not very convincing.
My problem with this sonnet goes back to that house of my childhood where I stood looking at this poem on a wall in a family that had broken, that had fractured, and it was telling me that these people obviously had not loved each other properly if their love had broken, that their love was somehow not true enough. And yet, I do not think this was the case. Love is not some immoveable ,unconquerable object that lasts forever if you can just find the right sort of love. No, love is hard to fahtom, fragile and requires nurturing, requires patience and mediation because, unlike the tempest-proof love of Shakespeare’s conception, love can break with the slightest breeze.
Historical Analysis
It is common knowledge that Shakespeare was married and had children, and yet whilst this historical record is accurate it isn’t however the be all and end all of Shakespeare’s relationships and sexuality. Shakespeare was reported to have had a number of mistresses in London but there were also rumours regarding his sexuality, a topic that has plagued critics throughout history, especially when we consider that a number of Shakespeare’s sonnets were written to a ‘fair man’ .
In this context, Sonnet 116 becomes less of a paean to true love and more of a call to arms in support of forbidden love, of a love that crosses social conventions and national laws. Indeed, proven homosexuality during the Elizabethan period carried a criminal conviction, sometimes even resulting in the death penalty.Homosexuality was not uncommon in England in spite of this, though it was something to be hidden.
The first line of the sonnet can be interpreted to mean ‘I will love whoever I choose without obstactles’. Indeed, the the opening quatrain can be interpreted quite literally to discuss the differences between male and female physicality, with the poet suggesting that it is not love when a man finds the differences or the ‘alterations’ between his body and a female lover.
Shakespeare then goes on to talk about love in terms of sea-faring, of ships. What is curious about this is that sailors and ship-captains of the Elizabethan were almost all male, and so the imagery the poet is using to describe true love is of a particularly masculine and male-dominated kind. The third quatrain further promotes masculine and phallic imagery of the ‘bending sickle’ as it talks about the everlasting quality of love.
Shakespeare finishes his poem with a couplet that can also be interpreted in another, sexually charged way. He is saying that if his view of true love(that is, male with male love) is proven lawfully wrong(as the law is a common marker of right and wrong in most societies), then it will be proved ‘upon me’, that is to say, by physical and even corporal punishment. Finally, he suggests the possiblity his work will be destroyed(‘I never writ’ and that love between men will be denied.
Separated by an Octave and a Sestet
Generally contains a volta/turn in the 9th line
A problem is outlined in the Octave and the Solution is presented in the sestet.
The English / Shakespearean Sonnet
Separated by three Quatrains and a Rhyming Couplet
Generally contains a volta/turn in the third Quatrain
A different perspective or solution is produced in the final couplet.
On His Blindness
When I consider how my light is spent (a)
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, (b)
And that one talent which is death to hide, (b) l
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent (a) Octave
To serve therewith my Maker, and present (a) l
My true account, lest he returning chide; (b)
"Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?" (b)
I fondly ask; but Patience to prevent (a)
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need (c)
Either man's work or his own gifts; who best (d) l
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state (e) Sestet
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed (c) l
And post o'er land and ocean without rest; (d)
They also serve who only stand and wait." (e)
Sonnet 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds (a)
Admit impediments, love is not love (b)
Which alters when it alteration finds, (a) First Quatrain
Or bends with the remover to remove. (b)
O no, it is an ever fix-ed mark (c)
That looks on tempests and is never shaken; (d)
It is the star to every wand'ring bark, (c) Second Quatrain
Whose worth's unknown although his height be taken. (d)
Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks (e)
Within his bending sickle's compass come, (f)
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, (e) Third Quatrain
But bears it out even to the edge of doom: (f)
If this be error and upon me proved, (g) Final Couplet
I never writ, nor no man ever loved. (g)
Textual Analysis
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116 is an oft-cited Sonnet that captures contemporary notions of love. Indeed, such is its popularity that many believe it to have inspired the ceremonial marriage rites of western cultures wherein the bride and groom are asked ‘Do you take this man to be your lawful wedded husband, for richer or for poor, in sickness and in health, til death do you part?’ .
The Sonnet opens with the poet invoking the word of marriage, and so reveals almonst instantly the primary topic of the sonnet: true love. He begins by telling us what love is not, namely it does not ‘alter’ when it finds ‘alterations’ and that it doesn’t ‘bend’ when someone is trying to break or remove it. The second quartrain moves the poem into discussing what love is,namely that love is a constant ‘mark’ that experiences storms and dangers but can never be moved or ‘shaken’, despite us not knowing the true ‘worth’ or value of love. Finally, the poet moves past wordly impediments and characteristics of love and settles on addressing time, the biggest threat to love. And yet the poet believes that whilst mortality falls under the dominion of time, love is everlasting and lives on even to the end. The final couplet offers a solution to the question of love and the imminence of time: he says if what he thinks about love is wrong, then he never wrote and no man ever loved. This is rhetorical and an almost parodoxical argument because we are reading what the poet wrote, so we know he has written, and so he is saying he cannot be wrong, and so love must last forever because you are reading his writing.
In many ways Shakespeare’s sonnet mirrors the traditional and often stereotypical course of love whilst offering a solution in the final couplet. We could track the sonnet through the stages of a relationship; the fiery early period of arguments and fault-finding; ; the devoted and loving middle period of marriage and family; and the worried and time-haunted final period of a relationship before death. In this sense, Shakespeare’s writing is designed to comfort the reader by saying ‘Though you will die and lose the person you love, love lives on until the end of the world. You experience the eternal’, and this thought is what makes the poem an enduring dedication to everlasting love.
Personal Response Analysis
I remember reading this poem when I was 16 in the house of a girlfriend’s parents. Her parents had recently got divorced and reading this poem struck me then and strikes me now as profoundly sad and tragic in its idealism. The opening quatrain tells us not to allow obstacles to block the ‘marriage of true minds’, that love does not alter or ‘bend’ when someone is trying to break it. And yet, the opening quatrain troubled me. On the one hand, throughout Shakespeare’s writing, he positions love as some spiritual, ethereal quality and yet he initially tells us it is of the mind, that it is somehow rational. Indeed,Shakespeare returns to this mystical conception of love in the second quatrain when he describes love as having a worth ‘unknown’. There is therefore a conflict within the poem itself because on the one hand, Shakespeare is telling us ‘This is what love is. It shouldn’t be this, it should be this’ but on the other hand is’s telling us love is mysterious and that we don’t know the true value of love. So we are moved to ask, if we don’t know the value of true love, how does Shakespeare?
The third quatrain introduces another problem into the poet’s predicament: he tells us that whilst mortality falls within Time’s ‘bending sickle’, that love does not change and exists’even to the edge of doom’. The problem here is that Shakespeare initially positions love as being ‘the marriage of true minds’, which is to say the union of two mortal minds, and then tells us that after the owners of these minds die that love somehow carries on. Finally, the final Couplet makes a profoundly immature argument that is essentially ; ‘If this is wrong, then I never wrote, but because you can see I wrote then I must be right!’. On the whole, it is not very convincing.
My problem with this sonnet goes back to that house of my childhood where I stood looking at this poem on a wall in a family that had broken, that had fractured, and it was telling me that these people obviously had not loved each other properly if their love had broken, that their love was somehow not true enough. And yet, I do not think this was the case. Love is not some immoveable ,unconquerable object that lasts forever if you can just find the right sort of love. No, love is hard to fahtom, fragile and requires nurturing, requires patience and mediation because, unlike the tempest-proof love of Shakespeare’s conception, love can break with the slightest breeze.
Historical Analysis
It is common knowledge that Shakespeare was married and had children, and yet whilst this historical record is accurate it isn’t however the be all and end all of Shakespeare’s relationships and sexuality. Shakespeare was reported to have had a number of mistresses in London but there were also rumours regarding his sexuality, a topic that has plagued critics throughout history, especially when we consider that a number of Shakespeare’s sonnets were written to a ‘fair man’ .
In this context, Sonnet 116 becomes less of a paean to true love and more of a call to arms in support of forbidden love, of a love that crosses social conventions and national laws. Indeed, proven homosexuality during the Elizabethan period carried a criminal conviction, sometimes even resulting in the death penalty.Homosexuality was not uncommon in England in spite of this, though it was something to be hidden.
The first line of the sonnet can be interpreted to mean ‘I will love whoever I choose without obstactles’. Indeed, the the opening quatrain can be interpreted quite literally to discuss the differences between male and female physicality, with the poet suggesting that it is not love when a man finds the differences or the ‘alterations’ between his body and a female lover.
Shakespeare then goes on to talk about love in terms of sea-faring, of ships. What is curious about this is that sailors and ship-captains of the Elizabethan were almost all male, and so the imagery the poet is using to describe true love is of a particularly masculine and male-dominated kind. The third quatrain further promotes masculine and phallic imagery of the ‘bending sickle’ as it talks about the everlasting quality of love.
Shakespeare finishes his poem with a couplet that can also be interpreted in another, sexually charged way. He is saying that if his view of true love(that is, male with male love) is proven lawfully wrong(as the law is a common marker of right and wrong in most societies), then it will be proved ‘upon me’, that is to say, by physical and even corporal punishment. Finally, he suggests the possiblity his work will be destroyed(‘I never writ’ and that love between men will be denied.