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On His Blindness
A Poem by John Milton (1608-1674)

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Type of Work and Year Written
"On His Blindness" is a Petrarchan sonnet, a lyric poem with fourteen lines. This type of sonnet, popularized by the Italian priest Petrarch (1304-1374), has a rhyme scheme of ABBA, ABBA, CDE, and CDE. John Milton wrote the poem in 1655. For more information about sonnets, see Origin of the Sonnet Form, below.
Theme
God judges humans on whether they labor for Him to the best of their ability. For example, if one carpenter can make only two chairs a day and another carpenter can make five, they both serve God equally well if the first carpenter makes his two chairs and the second makes his five. If one carpenter becomes severely disabled and cannot make even a single chair, he remains worthy in the sight of God. For, as Milton says in the last line of the poem, "they also serve who only stand and wait."
Lines 3-6: Key to the Meaning
Lines 3 to 6 of the poem allude to the "Parable of the Talents" in Chapter 25 of the Gospel of Matthew, verses 14 to 30. In this famous parable, an employer who is going away for a time gives his three servants money in proportion to their ability to increase its value. He distributes the money in talents, a unit of weight used in ancient times to establish the value of gold, silver, or any other medium used as money. Thus, a Roman might pay ten talents of gold for military supplies or seven talents of silver for a quantity of food. In the "Parable of the Talents," the employer gives the first servant five talents of silver, the second servant two talents, and the third servant one talent. After the employer returns from the trip and asks for an accounting, the first servant reports that he doubled his talents to ten and the second that he doubled his to four. Both men receive promotions. The third servant then reports that he still has only one talent, for he did nothing to increase its value. Instead, he buried it. The employer denounces him for his laziness, gives his talent to the man with ten, and casts him outside into the darkness.
Meter
All the lines in the poem are in iambic pentameter. In this metric pattern, a line has five pairs of unstressed and stressed syllables, for a total of ten syllables. The first two lines of the poem illustrate this pattern:
1...........2........... 3............4............5
When I | con SID | er HOW.| my LIFE | is SPENT
1................2............ 3...............4....................4
Ere HALF | my DAYS | in THIS | dark WORLD.| and WIDE
Background
John Milton's eyesight began to fail in 1644. By 1652, he was totally blind. Oddly, he wrote his greatest works, Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, after he became blind. Many scholars rank Milton as second only to Shakespeare in poetic ability.
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On His Blindness
By John Milton (1608-1674)
Text
When I consider how my light is spent1
Ere half my days2 in this dark world and wide
And that one talent3 which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless,4 though my soul more bent
To serve therewith5 my Maker, and present
My true account,6 lest he returning chide;
"Doth God exact7 day labor, light denied?"
I fondly8 ask. But Patience,9 to prevent
That murmur, soon replies,. "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts.10 Who best
Bear his mild yoke,11 they serve him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed,.
And post12 o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.13
Notes
1....light is spent: This clause presents a double meaning: (a) how I spend my days, (b) how it is that my sight is used up.
2....Ere half my days: Before half my life is over. Milton was completely blind by 1652, the year he turned 44.
3....talent: See Line 3: Key to the Meaning.
4....useless: Unused.
5....therewith: By that means, by that talent; with it
6....account: Record of accomplishment; worth
7....exact: Demand, require
8....fondly: Foolishly, unwisely
9....Patience: Milton personifies patience, capitalizing it and having it speak.
10..God . . . gifts: God is sufficient unto Himself. He requires nothing outside of Himself to exist and be happy.
11. yoke: Burden, workload.
12. post: Travel.

Examples of Figures of Speech
Alliteration: my days in this dark world and wide (line 2)
Metaphor: though my soul more bent / To serve therewith my Maker (lines 3-4). The author compares his soul to his mind.
Personification/Metaphor: But Patience, to prevent / That murmur, soon replies . . . (lines 8-9).
Paradox: They also serve who only stand and wait.
Origin of the Sonnet Form
.......The sonnet form originated in Sicily in the thirteenth Century with Giacomo da Lentino (1188-1240), a lawyer. The poetic traditions of the Provençal region of France apparently influenced him, but he wrote his poems in the Sicilian dialect of Italian. Some authorities credit another Italian, Guittone d'Arezzo (1230-1294), with originating the sonnet. The English word "sonnet" comes from the Italian word "sonetto," meaning "little song." Some early sonnets were set to music, with accompaniment provided by a lute.
.......The Italian poet Petrarch (1304-1374), a Roman Catholic priest, popularized the sonnet form. Other popular Italian sonneteers were Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Italy's most famous and most accomplished writer, and Guido Cavalcante (1255-1300).
.......Petrarch's sonnets each consist of an eight-line stanza (octave) and a six-line stanza (sestet). The first stanza presents a theme, and the second stanza develops it. The rhyme scheme is as follows: (1) first stanza (octave): ABBA, ABBA; (2) second stanza (sestet): CDE, CDE (or CDC, CDC; or CDE, DCE). Sonnets written in this format by later poets came to be known as Petrarchan sonnets.
.......The sonnet form was introduced in England by Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-1547). They translated Italian sonnets into English and wrote sonnets of their own. Surrey introduced blank verse into the English language in his translation of the Aeneid of Vergil. Wyatt and Surrey sometimes replaced Petrarch's scheme of an eight-line stanza and a six-line stanza with three four-line stanzas and a two-line conclusion known as a couplet. Shakespeare adopted the latter scheme in his sonnets, and this form came to be known as the Shakespearean sonnet.
.......Besides Shakespeare, well known English sonneteers in the late 1500's included Sir Philip Sydney, Samuel Daniel, and Michael Drayton.
.......In Italy, England, and elsewhere between the thirteenth and early sixteenth Centuries, the most common theme of sonnets was love. Sonnets in later times also focused on religion, politics, and other concerns of the reading public.
Study Questions and Essay Topics
1. Write an essay that provides examples of people who exemplify the last line of the poem.
2. Research the life of John Milton. Then write an essay describing the methods he used to compose his poetry when he was blind.
3. Another famous man, Ludwig van Beethoven, composed great symphonies after he became deaf. Pete Gray, a baseball player, earned the right to play in the major leagues even though he had only one arm. Julius Caesar, an epileptic, became ruler of Rome. Do you believe that the human psyche has a way of compensating for a physical disability?

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sparknotes
Shakespeare’s Sonnets
William Shakespeare
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 dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Summary
The speaker opens the poem with a question addressed to the beloved: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” The next eleven lines are devoted to such a comparison. In line 2, the speaker stipulates what mainly differentiates the young man from the summer’s day: he is “more lovely and more temperate.” Summer’s days tend toward extremes: they are shaken by “rough winds”; in them, the sun (“the eye of heaven”) often shines “too hot,” or too dim. And summer is fleeting: its date is too short, and it leads to the withering of autumn, as “every fair from fair sometime declines.” The final quatrain of the sonnet tells how the beloved differs from the summer in that respect: his beauty will last forever (“Thy eternal summer shall not fade...”) and never die. In the couplet, the speaker explains how the beloved’s beauty will accomplish this feat, and not perish because it is preserved in the poem, which will last forever; it will live “as long as men can breathe or eyes can see.”
Commentary
This sonnet is certainly the most famous in the sequence of Shakespeare’s sonnets; it may be the most famous lyric poem in English. Among Shakespeare’s works, only lines such as “To be or not to be” and “Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” are better-known. This is not to say that it is at all the best or most interesting or most beautiful of the sonnets; but the simplicity and loveliness of its praise of the beloved has guaranteed its place.
On the surface, the poem is simply a statement of praise about the beauty of the beloved; summer tends to unpleasant extremes of windiness and heat, but the beloved is always mild and temperate. Summer is incidentally personified as the “eye of heaven” with its “gold complexion”; the imagery throughout is simple and unaffected, with the “darling buds of May” giving way to the “eternal summer”, which the speaker promises the beloved. The language, too, is comparatively unadorned for the sonnets; it is not heavy with alliteration or assonance, and nearly every line is its own self-contained clause—almost every line ends with some punctuation, which effects a pause.
Sonnet 18 is the first poem in the sonnets not to explicitly encourage the young man to have children. The “procreation” sequence of the first 17 sonnets ended with the speaker’s realization that the young man might not need children to preserve his beauty; he could also live, the speaker writes at the end of Sonnet 17, “in my rhyme.” Sonnet 18, then, is the first “rhyme”—the speaker’s first attempt to preserve the young man’s beauty for all time. An important theme of the sonnet (as it is an important theme throughout much of the sequence) is the power of the speaker’s poem to defy time and last forever, carrying the beauty of the beloved down to future generations. The beloved’s “eternal summer” shall not fade precisely because it is embodied in the sonnet: “So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,” the speaker writes in the couplet, “So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”




Classification of poem
Type of poem: lyric poem
Type of lyric poem: sonnet
Type of sonnet: Italian or Petrarchan sonnet

Contents of this Page
General Comments
Definitions and Allusions
Analysis of Poem
The Octet (Lines 1-
The Sestet (Lines 9-14)
Keats Syllabus


General Comments
Keats was so moved by the power and aliveness of Chapman's translation of Homer that he wrote this sonnet--after spending all night reading Homer with a friend. The poem expresses the intensity of Keats's experience; it also reveals how passionately he cared about poetry. To communicate how profoundly the revelation of Homer's genius affected him, Keats uses imagery of exploration and discovery. In a sense, the reading experience itself becomes a Homeric voyage, both for the poet and the reader.
Written in October 1816, this is the first entirely successful (surviving) poem he wrote. John Middleton Murry called it "one of the finest sonnets in the English language."
Definitions and Allusions
The lines of the sonnet appear in the left column; those lines are explained in the right column. Words in purple are explained in the right column.
Lines of the Poem Explanation of Lines
Much have I travelled in the realms of gold This phrase can be read in two closely related ways, (1) as the world of imagination and/or (2) as the world of poetry. The difference in meaning between these two readings is a matter of emphasis, because poetry is produced by the imagination.
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Having a pleasing appearance or character; large or extensive
Round many western islands have I been This line suggests the voyages of Odysseus, the hero of Homer's Odyssey.
Which bards1 in fealty2 to Apollo3 hold. 1 A professional poet who composed and sang songs about heroes
2 Devoted fidelity or loyalty, originally the allegiance of a tenant (or vassal) to his lord
3 Greek god of poetry and music
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told

That deep-browed Homer1 ruled as his demesne2 1 Homer, the great Greek poet, wrote two epics, The Iliad and The Odyssey, His date is placed anywhere betweeen 1050 and 850 B.C.
2 Realm or kingdom
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene A bright clear sky; clear air
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: George Chapman (1559-1634) was a poet and playwright.
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies The planet Uranus was discovered in 1781 by F.W. Herschel.
When a new planet swims into his ken; Range of sight or knowledge
Or like stout1 Cortez2 when with eagle eyes 1 Strong, brave, bold (not, in this context, fat!)
2 Balboa, not Cortez, discovered the Pacific Ocean.
He stared at the Pacific--and all his men

Looked at each other with a wild surmise Guess or conjecture
Silent upon a peak in Darien. The Darien mountain range runs the length of the Isthmus of Darien, now called Panama.



Analysis
As a Petrarchan or Italian sonnet, "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" falls into two parts--an octet (eight lines) and a sestet (six lines). The octet describes Keats's reading experience before reading Chapman's translation and the sestet contrasts his experience of reading it.
The octet stresses Keats's wide reading experience; for example he says "MUCH have I TRAVELED," meaning that he has read a great deal. What other words/phrases in the octet also indicate his extensive traveling (reading) experience? Note he has traveled both on land and sea.
The Octet (lines 1-
Much have I traveled in the realms of gold
The phrase "realms of gold" functions in a number of ways. "Realms" starts the image cluster of locations--"states," "kingdoms" "demesnes." These words, as well as "in fealty," suggest political organization. The phrase also symbolizes the world of literature or, if you prefer, imagination. What is Keats saying about the value of this world., i.e., why describe it as realms of gold, rather than of lead or brass, for instance? Why does he use the plural "realmS," rather than the singular "realm"?
Finally, "realms of gold" anticipates the references in the sestet to the Spanish Conquistadores in the New World, for whom the lust for gold was a primary motive. The repetition of "l" sounds in "travelled," "realms," and "gold" emphasizes the idea and ties the words together.
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
The high, even holy function that poets fulfill is indicated by their being the servants of a god, Apollo, and having sworn to follow him (with the suggestion of their having consecrated their lives to him). "Fealty," in addition, indicates their dedication to Apollo and, by extension, to their calling, the writing of poetry.
With the reference to poets, Keats moves from those who read (or who experience through poets' imaginations) to those who create poetry (or who express their own imaginations). Then the poem narrows to one particular poet who rules the realm of poetry, i.e., whose genius and inspired poetry raise him above even dedicated poets.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
To emphasize the extent of Homer's genius and his literary accomplishments, Keats modifies "expanse" (which means "extensive") with an adjective which also means "extensive," i.e., the adjective "wide."
That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne;
"Deep-browed" refers to Homer's intellect. (We use the adjective "deep" colloquially with a similar meaning today, in such phrases as "a deep thought" or "she's a deep thinker.")

Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
By breathing in the "pure serene," he makes it a part of himself; would the same effect be achieved if he walked or ran through Homer's demesne (his poetry)? What is Keats saying about the necessity of poetry (how important is breathing)?
This line and the next line contrast Keats's knowledge of Homer's reputation and his experiencing the genius of Homer's poetry in Chapman's translation. What are your assocations with the words "pure" and "serene"-- positive, negative, neutral? Note that these words apply to both the poetry of Homer and the translation by Chapman.
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold;

The Sestet (lines 9-14)
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
"Then" moves the poem to a new idea, to the consequences or the results of reading Chapman's translation. At the same time, "then" connects the sestet to the octet and so provides a smooth transition from one section of the poem to the other. In this line and the next line, reading Chapman's translation has revealed a new dimension or world to Keats, which he expresses by extending the world to include the heavens.
When a new planet swims into his ken;
To get a sense of Keats' excitement and joy at the discovery of Homer via Chapman, imagine the moment of looking up into the sky and seeing a planet--which has been unknown till that moment. Also imagine the moment of struggling up a mountain, reaching the top and beholding--not land, as you expected--but an expanse of ocean, reaching to the horizon and beyond. What would that moment of discovery, that moment of revelation of a new world, that moment of enlarging the world you knew, feel like?
The planet "swims" into view. Though the astronomer is actively looking (as Keats actively read), yet the planet, which has always been there, comes into his view. The image of swimming is part of the water imagery, starting with the voyages of line 3 to the Pacific Ocean in the ending.
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
Since the discovery of the Pacific is a visual experience, Keats emphasizes Cortez's eyes. What kind of eyesight does an eagle have (is it different from that of an owl or a bat, for instance)?
He stared at the Pacific--and all his men
Why does Cortez "stare," rather than just look at or glance at the Pacific? Does Keats's error in identifying Cortez as discovering the ocean detract significantly from this poem?
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise--
What is the impact of this discovery on Cortez's men? Why are they silent? Why do they look at each other with "WILD surmise"? What does the adjective "wild" suggest about their feelings on seeing the Pacific, about the impact of that discovery on them?
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
The image of Cortez and his men standing overwhelmed is sharply presented. Note the contrast of Chapman's "loud and bold voice" in the last line of the octet and the "silence" of Cortez and his men in the last line of the poem.


Amoretti LXXV
Biography and Analysis
"I doe at length descry the happy shore, / in which I hope ere long for to arryue," (Spenser, Am. LXIII) He finally reached the shore, or marriage. "The gentle birde feeles no captiuity / within her cage, but singes
and feeds her fill." (Spenser, Am. LXIII) Spenser is saying marriage does not feel like captivity but a haven.

In sonnet LXXV, Spenser writes Elizabeth's name in the sand twice. Elizabeth thinks it is silly to do something that will wash away so quickly. She says she will wash away like the sand. Spenser says some things will, "but you shall liue by fame: / my verse your vertues rare shall eternize, / and in the heuens wryte your glorious name." (Am. LXXV) He is saying that Amoretti will make her eternal and so will her name being written in the Book of Life. Spenser says that his love is beautiful, but true beauty is "to be diuine and borne of heauenly seed: / deriu'd from that fayre Spirit." (Spenser, Am. LXXIX) True beauty is from the inside. All other beauty "lyke flowres vntymely fade". (Spenser, Am. LXXIX)

The last few sonnets tell of Spenser's sadness that he is from the presence of his love. He longs for her return. He misses her beauty that lightens his life up, he feels dead without it. "Dark is my day, whyles her fayre light I mis, / and dead my life that wants such liuely blis." (Spenser, Am. LXXXIX)

Edmund Spenser added to poetry. Without him, the sonnet would not be the same. He mastered the sonnet and was able to manipulate the sonnet. Amoretti shows the depth of the human mind in love. The metaphors and language used captures a vivid picture of love and loves cruel games.

Amoretti, though often overlooked, has definitely impacted the world with its depth of emotions, its use of metaphors, and its adroitness. Edmund Spenser was able to write these sonnets in a way that will impact the reader. He is "the Prince of Poets in his time."


Edmund Spencer's Amoretti was published in 1595 after he met and married his second wife Elizabeth Boyle. Amoretti translates as "little notes" or "little cupids," and were written most likely about his wife. A

successful love is an unusual topic for Spencer, who usually wrote sonnets about unrequited love (902). This poem follows the Spenserian sonnet format, which is abab bcbc cdcd ee (three quatrains and an ending rhyming couplet). Amoretti, Sonnet 75 is about the ability of love to transcend all boundaries; it will live on after death through his words.

One day I wrote her name upon the strand (shore),

But came the waves and washed it away:

Agayne I wrote it with a second hand,

But came the tyde, and made my paynes his pray (prey) (lines 1-4).

A man wrote his beloved's name in the sand, but it was washed away by the tide. He writes her name again, but as before the tide washes it away. He writes her name a second time expecting different results; is this an act of insanity or of mere defiance? I believe that he is repeatedly writing his beloved's name in the sand to show his relentless need to have his love be remembered forever. Man has an innate need to carve out a place in history for himself; so that he feels that his life meant something.

One thing to note is that the narrator makes the wave masculine. Typically nature is associated with femininity, because women are the creators of life and nature's job is to sustain life. Perhaps the reason the narrator makes the waves masculine is because it is destroying something; in the late 1500s women were seen as submissive, fragile creatures, who were not involved in the eradication of life or memory.

"Vayne man," sayd she, "that doest in vaine assay (attempt),

A mortall thing so to immortalize,

For I my selve shall lyke to this decay,

And eek (also) my name bee wiped out lykewize."

"Not so," quod (said) I, "let baser things devize (contrive)

To dy in dust, but you shall live by fame:

My verse your vertues rare shall eternize,

And in the heavens wryte your glorious name (5-12).
In the second quatrain, a female voice (perhaps his beloved) tells him that he is working in vain to make something immortal that is not meant to be immortal. Mortal things inevitably fade from history, and there

nothing that anyone can do to change that; the waves will come and wash away all trace of man, no matter how hard they try to stop it.

The reason I ventured that the female voice in the second quatrain is the voice of his beloved is because of lines ten and eleven. He tells her that she will live on through his verse (sonnet); the love that he wants to live on is between him and his beloved. The hope of every writer is to have their work immortalized; studied long after their death. Love transcends all bounds; even after death their love will be eternal.

Where whenas death shall all the world subdew,

Our love shall live, and later life renew" (13-14).

This last rhyming couplet is meant to sum up the poem. Death cannot extinguish love; it will live on. It will be renewed every time someone reads this sonnet; these words can never die, thus their love will never die.

Works Cited

Spenser, Edmund. "Amoretti: Sonnet 75." The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Sixteenth Century/ The Early Seventeenth Century. 8th ed. Vol. B. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: Norton, 2006. 902-906.



This essay touches on the use of "thou" round about the time of Shakespeare. The difference between "you" and "thou" is a bit difficult to get a handle on, and this essay just scratches at the surface of this topic.
Spenser: Sonnet 75

LXXV


1. One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
2. But came the waves and washed it away:
3. Agayne I wrote it with a second hand,
4. But came the tyde, and made my paynes his pray.
5. "Vayne man," sayd she, "that doest in vaine assay.
6. A mortall thing so to immortalize,
7. For I my selve shall lyke to this decay,
8. and eek my name bee wyped out lykewize."
9. "Not so," quod I, "let baser things devize,
10. To dy in dust, but you shall live by fame:
11. My verse your vertues rare shall eternize,
12. And in the heavens wryte your glorious name.
13. Where whenas death shall all the world subdew,
14. Our love shall live, and later life renew."
Spenser


Edmund Spenser was possibly born in 1552 but, then again, possibly not. He died in 1599. His most important work is The Faerie Queene. His works include a sonnet sequence which bears the title Amoretti and it is from this sequence that sonnet 75 comes.


Shakespeare: Sonnet 19

XIX


1. Devouring time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
2. And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
3. Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
4. And burn the long-lived phoenix, in her blood;
5. Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,
6. And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
7. To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
8. But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:
9. O! carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,
10. Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;
11. Him in thy course untainted do allow
12. For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.
13. Yet, do thy worst old Time: despite thy wrong,
14. My love shall in my verse ever live young.
Shakespeare


William Shakespeare was born in 1564 and died in 1616. He wrote plays and also a certain amount of poetry, including sonnets.
Assignment for 18.210: THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE: POETRY

A Comparative Analysis
of Spenser's Sonnet 75
with Shakespeare's Sonnet 19


Both Spenser's Sonnet 75 and Shakespeare's Sonnet 19 similarly claim to bestow immortality upon the beloved. Despite similar themes, however, these sonnets contrast sharply. Spenser's sonnet ostensibly reports a conversation between the poet and his beloved, whereas Shakespeare's sonnet directly addresses personified time, and shows the greater dramatic flair.

Spenser's first two words, "One day", eschew drama by setting his poem in a vague and unparticularised past. Line 1 tells how he wrote his beloved's name on the beach, and line 2 of how the waves washed that name away. Lines 3 and 4 tell of how he rewrote the name and the sea repeated the act of erasure, this cycle of erasures mimetically echoing the cyclic action of the waves. This cyclic action is emphasised by the repetition of the verbs "wrote" and "came".

These first four lines speak of the uselessness of writing, since the writer's efforts ("paynes") were metaphorically eaten ("made ... his pray") by the tide, here seen as some beast which hunts - or as an incarnation of devouring time.

The first four lines of the octet having described the action of the sea, the second four lines then quote the beloved as explictly drawing a moral from that action, saying "I my selve shall lyke to this decay". The woman meant that she too would be obliterated like words written on the beach. Spenser thus makes explicit the parallel between the transitory words and mortal human life. The octet contains, then, a deliberate step-by-step argument.

By saying that "I my selve shall lyke to this decay", the beloved has acknowledged that the seeds of decay are in herself. This claim permits this sonnet to be related to Christian doctrine in which mortality is an inevitable part of our inheritance in consequence of the original sin of Adam and Eve. Indeed, Spenser ends his sonnet by positing a Christian resurrection which will "later life renew". By contrast, Christian sentiment does not feature in Shakespeare's poem, and we would not take Shakespeare to be a pagan worshipper of personified time. Arguably, then, Spenser's poem is underwritten by and refers to the poet's actual religious beliefs, whereas Shakespeare's poem is more of a pure rhetorical performance, a display of wit operating without any connection to the poet's actual beliefs.

By way of comparison, it is also worth noting that the chief image in Spenser's octet, that of time as an erasing tide, is a simile. By contrast, Shakespeare works with metaphor all through Sonnet 19, in which personified time is an external agency which the poet addresses directly. The use of metaphor rather than simile helps make Shakespeare's the more direct and forceful poem.

Spenser, having in the octet indicated the inevitability of death, then in the sestet makes the conventional claim that his verse will bestow immortality upon the beloved (lines 10 and 11). Shakespeare similarly claims that "My love shall in my verse ever live young", and ends his sonnet on this note, offering no evidence for this egotistical (or defiant) boast. Spenser more modestly and less assertively dilutes the claim he makes for his poetry by piously acknowledging the Christian promise of resurrection and an afterlife.

In Sonnet 75, Spenser writes in metrically regular lines which make great use of alliteration: "waves and washed", "wrote it with", "paynes his pray", "dy in dust", "verse your vertues", "Where whenas", "love shall live" and "later life". The metrical regularity and the music of alliteration provide a smooth background against which the poet carefully works out his argument, opposing the vanity of writing on a beach to the "vertues rare" and "glorious name" which can be written "in the heavens". Thus Sonnet 75 sets up a carefully argued opposition between earthly things and heavenly things.

By contrast, in Sonnet 19 Shakespeare proceeds not by argument but by proclamation, in a dramatic soliloquy directly addressed to personified time: "Devouring time, blunt thou the lion's paws". This is a very heavily stressed line, containing a string of three heavy stresses which fall on "time", "blunt" and "thou". Line 2 is regular iambic pentameter, but line 3 opens with a trochaic foot followed by the two strongly stresed words "keen" and "teeth". Line 4 is again irregular, with heavy stresses on both "long" and "lived", and a third heavy stress directly afterwards on the first syllable of "phoenix".

This disruption of the expected metrical pattern of the sonnet emphasises the dissonant nature of time, which is being invited to perform violence upon the strongest of creatures - it being understood by the reader that time will perform such violence anyway, even if not invited.

The direct command which opens Shakespeare's sonnet is followed by others - "blunt," "make," "Pluck," "burn," and "make glad" - all of which are phrased as permissions. This vigorous string of permissions culminates in a grant of total licence - "And do whate'er thou wilt" - in opposition to which there is set one prohibition, in that time is forbidden the "heinous crime" of ageing the beloved, here male. This opposition emphasises the poet's horror of the "heinous crime".

"Heinous" is one of a copious supply of adjectives, most linked to concrete nouns such as "teeth" and "jaws", which help carry the highly charged emotions of this sonnet. In contrast to Shakespeare's vivid and specific instancing of concrete detail, Spenser is vague and generalising, from his opening "One day" to the abstract and unparticularised nouns "things" and "virtues". Spenser's language is calm, and scantily supplied with adjectives.

Shakespeare addresses time intimately as "thou". In this period, "thou" was used in the most intimate situations, as for example "when addressing God". (Ronberg: 76). "Thou" is also lower-class usage which contrasts with the "you" commonly substituted by the upper classes. (Ronberg: 76-77). Shakespeare, then, has chosen the most intimate form of address available to him, whereas Spenser's choice of second person pronoun (in "you shall live by fame") locates his sonnet in the context of upper class discourse.

In summary, in contrasting these two sonnets, Shakespeare's is dramatic, direct, intimate and emotional whereas Spenser's is by comparison calm, remote and more concerned to reason out an argument. It is fair to say that they reflect the contrasting careers of the men who wrote them: Spenser the civil servant and Shakespeare the dramatist.


Bibliography



Ronberg, Gert. (1992) A Way With Words. London: Edward Arnold.


Sonnet 75
In an effort to immortalize the name of his beloved, the speaker writes her name “upon the strand” (on the beach) only to have the waves wash it away (lines 1-2). He tries again, and again the tide erases his beloved’s name. While his fiancée calls him “Vayne man” to try such an impossible task, he rejects her argument that her own “selue shall lyke to this decay” (line 7) by turning (as usual) to his poetry as a source of immortality. He proudly proclaims, “my verse your vertues rare shall eternize,/and in the heauens wryte your glorious name.” (lines 11-12). Even when death “shall all the world subdew” (line 13) his verse will live on (in print?) and “later life renew” (line 14).
From Amoretti

Sonnet 75 (1595)
One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Agayne I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tyde, and made my paynes his pray.
5 Vayne man, sayd she, that doest in vaine assay,
A mortall thing so to immortalize,
For I my selve shall lyke to this decay,
And eek my name bee wyped out lykewize.
Not so, (quod I) let baser things devize
10 To dy in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your vertues rare shall eternize,
And in the hevens wryte your glorious name.
Where whenas death shall all the world subdew,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.
Editor´s Comments
Poetic images can be surprisingly persistent over time. Spenser's Sonnet 75 opens with the striking image of a man writing his beloved's name in the sand, only to see the waves wash it away again. Anyone who listened to the radio in the 1950's would have heard a hit song by Pat Boone, called "Love Letters in the Sand." In a very general sense, the images are the same, as they suggest how ephemeral a gesture of love can be. If we look more closely though, we begin to see differences. The speaker in Spenser's sonnet is not a pop singer whose girl has left him. Spenser is in fact setting the speaker up for a rebuke from his beloved, who charges him with the vanity of ignoring his own human mortality. The lover in his turn is then able to raise the argument to a still higher plane, as he asserts that their love will triumph over death.
When the sonnet begins to deepen, it does so by invoking a variety of issues characteristic of the sixteenth century: the intense awareness of death, a continued sense of pride as a sin (even among protestants), the Petrarchan notion that mortal love can lead upward to divine love, the attempt to define a new kind of sacred married love. The image of writing a name in the sand doesn't have any absolute meaning of its own, certainly not one that transcends time. But like any image it is available to be used in a way that serves the needs of a particular moment in history. Sometimes it's just those images which seem to have the shock of familiarity that we need to look at twice. They might give us a way of getting inside an experience that happened 400 years ago, if it happened at all. But they may also show us that when history repeats itself, it does so differently.
Historical Considerations
As a poet, Spenser looked to the future, while remaining intensely aware of the past. It was his manner to use the old as a way to explore the new. His poem The Shepheardes Calender begins with a dedication by "E.K." which honors Chaucer: "Uncouthe unkiste, sayde the olde famous Poete Chaucer: whom for his excellencie and wonderfull skil in making, his scholler Lidgage, a worthy scholler of so excellent a maister, calleth the Loadestarre of our Language." The poem seeks to create a new kind of English poetry by using conventions from the classical world to inaugurate a new Renaissance fashion for pastoral. The language of the poem was intentionally old-fashioned and the illustrations were executed in the manner of the woodcut, which had already been superseded by newer technologies of printing.
Spenser also played with the sonnet form to create new poetic possibilities. Sonnet 75, for example, part of the Amoretti, makes use of the Petrarchan sonnet sequence that began with Petrarch's Canzoniere, an exploration of the love relationship between a lover and an unattainable beloved. Like others who appropriated Petrarch- Wyatt (who with Surrey introduced the sonnet to England), Sidney, Shakespeare, and Drayton- Spenser delighted in the task of inventing new variations on the familiar themes, criticizing the conventions, pushing them to new extremes, even parodying them. To read an Elizabethan sonnet sprung out of such interplay can therefore be a highly intertextual exercise, because any given sonnet may be in complex dialogue with countless other absent poems.
Poetry analysis: Sonnet 75, by Edmund Spenser
Mood: Confusion, frustrated, content, lost and completed.
Theme: Overcoming a psychological obstruction and facing the realities of love.
Structure: Lines 1-4 and Lines 5- 14
Sonnet one, by Sir Philip Sidney explains the glory and bitter realities of love. The poet expresses his in depth struggle against a mental block, causing his words to move haltingly. Sidney also explains his multiple attempts of overcoming his loss for words. The poet then realizes the resolution to his setbacks, through his lover, the shining star.
Lines 1-4 elaborate on the poets motives. The poet explains how he yearns to illustrate his passion for his lover which represents the Muse Urania. Lines 5-14 demonstrate in detail, how Sidney struggles to overcome his psychological obstruction.
The title of the sonnet reinforces the romance behind Sidney and his love. The word Astro signifies star, while the word phil means love in Greek. The title symbolically explains that the author orbits around this star. Moreover, this star acts as warmth that creates life on his planet. Stella in Latin means the star of the sea, which symbolizes the calmness and depth of the love that Sidney feels. However, the star of the sea could also explain the hardships and imperfections of love. This is because the sea can react with viscous tidal waves, or in settled peaceful sense. Sidney seemingly accepts the bitter-sweet realities of love and devotes his life to his star. The poet uses the first line of the sonnet to address his desirous(pg:452 line: 1) need to exemplify his love through poetic verses(pg:452 line 1). The second line of the sonnet introduces the idea that Sidney cannot produce his loving feelings on paper. In the line, That the dear she might take some pleasure of my pain... (pg:452 line 2) justifies that Sidney wishes that his love could understand how troublesome it is for him to be mentally frozen with his pain (pg:452 line 2) The pain acts as a frustration for Sidney. We are then introduced to the poet's thoughts, as he searches for the pleasure (pg: 452 line 3) in writing. This will allow his words to flow more smoothly, allowing the star to be connected with knowledge (pg:452 line 4). With the star gaining knowledge the poet will then be laid in grace (pg:452 line 4) by his love. The star is the poets love. This clarifies the idea that once the star understands how the poet feels, Sidney will then be laid to rest.
The poet searches for the correct words (pg: 452 line 5) by suitably describing the blackest face of woe. This describes how Sidney is trying to put the correct words on the page. Sidney wishes to study other inventions (pg:452 line 6), by metaphorically turning over the leaves to see if thence would flow... (pg: 452 line 7). The leaves represent other written work, and by reading other pieces of literature, Sidney hopes to feel inspired. The image of the fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburned brain(pg:452 line rationalizes the idea that Sidney feels his creative mind is worn and parched. The showers are the leaves that Sidney hopes will unlock his feelings. With this accomplished, the poet will successfully overcome his mental blockade. Unfortunately, though, the poet's words came halting forth (pg: 452 line 9), as Sidney stalls yet again, leaving himself buried in anguish. The idea of
the natures child (pg:452 line 10), indicates that Sidney's creativity should be flowing in a natural compulsive manner. However, the poet seemingly falls into yet another jam. Sidney is trying to convey the point that his loving feelings towards his love, should be flowing smoothly without any ambiguity. The line and others feet continually seemed but strangers in my way (pg: 452 line 11) creates a sense that Sidney is crawling in desperate search for the answer. Feet are blocking his way as he searches; however, feet could also signify that Sidney is following trails of footprints that lead to nowhere at all- leading Sidney into an obstruction. The footprints could be introduction to failure for Sidney as he attempted to learn from others works. Sidney states that he is biting my truant pen (pg452 line 13). This means that Sydney is biting a pen in desperate frustration, for not achieving the spark of inspiration. This frustration becomes so exhausting that Sidney begins to spite (pg:452 line 13) himself. Sidney finally reaches a solution; therefore, his ambiguity is lifted, his brain is reborn with fresh and fruitful showers... (pg:452 line and his obstruction is overcome. The poet's struggles finally come to an end when his Muse appears. The muse is his loving lady of inspiration, as he compares her to the Greek goddess of astronomy Urania; therefore explaining the connotation with the title of the sonnet sequence. Sidney feelings that his loving lady unlocks his trapped feelings; therefore, freeing him from his sorrow. The line look in thy heart and write (pg:452 line 14) is words of advice to Sydney from his lover. Sidney must realize that true inspiration comes from the heart, not from external demands.
Spenser's Sonnet 75 and Explanation/Analysis
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.

Title: Spenser’s Sonnet 75
Author: Edmund Spenser
Rhyme scheme/sonnet type: Spenserian sonnet (ABAB BCBC CDCD EE)
Meter check: iambic pentameter

Topic:
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 manmade 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.