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Close Reading of a Renaissance Poem

In Sonnet 3 by William Shakespeare, the speaker, an older man, is telling a young man that he should have a child. The sonnet, told in iambic pentameter, is about the speaker telling the young man to have children and how if he doesn’t it will affect his life. In a few lines, the speaker brings up other people and how they are affected by the young man. Both of these people are women, the first of which is the woman who could have the young man’s children. In these lines 5 and 6 the older man uses a metaphor comparing the woman to an unploughed piece of land for the young man to tillage, cultivate for raising crops. Then the speaker tells the young man that he is foolish for loving himself so much because it stops him from having children and will be the death of his family line. This is what happened with the younger man’s mother, who was also very beautiful and eventually had a child who she saw her youthful beauty in. The older man finally warns him, if he dies without having children the memory of his fair image will die with him.

The metaphor using husbandry, highlights that the man is the one performing that task by plowing the field. Meaning he is the one who can get a woman pregnant, so she needs him to have the blessing of a child. The speaker says, “For where is she so fair whose uneared womb / Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry,” (5-6) meaning that no woman is so beautiful she would refuse to have the young man’s child. This also highlights how beautiful the young man is because the poem is saying how there is no woman so fair that wouldn’t want to be fertilized with the man’s seed and be the mother of his offspring. Making it apparent the young man would make children just as beautiful as himself if he were to produce a child. This hides the fact that a woman’s body isn’t actually a piece of land to be farmed. A piece of land is not a person and gives way to the plowing of it. But the woman is alive so she has a say whether or not she wants to have a child, the decision is not only on the man’s side. The idea of these lines is that the mother would be blessed not only for having a child but specifically because it is the young man’s child. Through this metaphor, it empowers the man because he is the one who is going to plow the woman and put seed in the field that is the woman’s womb. She is only good for making the young man’s children, who would bring his beauty back into the world. The speaker even wants the reader to see the woman as being honored by getting to have the young man’s child. Then in the last quatrain it starts with, “Thou art thy mother’s glass, and she in thee,” (9) glass meaning the young man’s eyes are his mother’s mirror, so through his eyes’ his mother she can see the, “lovely April,” (10) of her youth. And should the young man have children, when he gets old he will be able to see his youth, “thy golden time,” (12) when he looks at his children.

The comparison of the woman to land that has not been plowed yet, shows the reader how the speaker of the sonnet feels about the young man and women. He sees the young man as being foolish to cheat the world of his beauty in the future, because without children it will be lost. Meaning that the beautiful man should follow in his mother’s footsteps and continue to bring such beauty into the world. The older man says the young man would, “unbless some mother,” (4) or that the woman would be sorely deprived if she did not get to have his child. The speaker's goal in this poem is to make the idea of having a child necessary and appealing to the young man, by stroking his ego and comparing him to his mother.

#shakespeare #sonnet 3

Shakespeare’s Sonnets #130 & #29

Sonnet #130 Paraphrase:

My lover’s eyes are not like the sun;

Coral is redder than her lips;

If snow is white than her breast or dull in color;

If hairs were wires then black wires would grow on her head.

I have seen roses mixed with read and white

But I don’t see rose colors in her cheeks;

And there are perfumes that smell better

Than my lover’s breath which reeks.

I love to her her speak, by I know

That music is much better to listen to;

I admit I have never seen a goddess walk

Because when my mistress walks she treads on the ground.

But still I think my love is the most beautiful and rare

As any woman who she has been compared to.

Sonnet #29 Analysis:

When analyzing a poem, it is important to look at the literary history, the form, poetic language, and imagery, all of which help contribute to the poem's meaning. This is just as true when looking at any of Shakespeare’s sonnets, but in particular I will be looking at sonnet 29. First, looking at the literary history of the sonnet form it is important to understand that the word sonnet comes from the Italian word sonetto which means “little song”; with the rhyme scheme in sonnets this makes sense because most times they sound very lyrical. For Shakespeare he used what is sometimes known as the English Sonnet, which is different from the Petrarchan, or Italian, sonnet in several ways. The biggest differences are in their stanza structures and rhyme schemes. Where they are similar though is that the Volta, or poetic turn, which is usually after the eighth line of the poem, but in English sonnets can happen after the twelfth line. Since this is an English sonnet the form of the poem is 3 quatrains and a couplet with the rhyme scheme of ABAB, CDCD, EFEF, and GG. Now that the literary background and form of the poem have been established the poetic language and imagery can be analyzed. This poem is about a male speaker who is unhappy with his lot in life, “I all alone beweep my outcast state,” (line 2) believing that his prayer for a better life has gone unheard. He believes that fate has conspired against him and wants more like other more blessed men, Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd / Desiring this man's art and that man's scope” (line 6-7). But in lines 8 and 9 the Volta occurs in the poem, “Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, / Haply I think on thee,” and the poem turns from a depressive tone to one of happiness. In the last 6 lines of the poem the speaker talks of his lover and how his life is better because of her, leading to the last line, “That then I scorn to change my state with kings” (line 14). The poem shows how for the speaker, even though he has faced many hardships and has low self-esteem having his lover makes life seem worth it. A lot of the poem has abstract imagery but lines 10 through 12 have some really concrete imagery to help so how the speaker feels when thinking of his lover, “ and then my state, / Like to the lark at break of day arising / From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate.” Shakespeare uses a simile to compare the speaker’s emotional state to a bird which rises at dawn to sing at heaven’s gate, which means just thinking of his lover makes him feel so much better. Shakespeare in this poem is trying to show how when life and God seem to be against you, love can give you just as much wealth as actual money or class, even going as far as to compare the feeling of love to a religious song.

#shakespeare #sonnet

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