Sonnet 108
Sonnet 108 | |||||||
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Sonnet 108 is one of
Paraphrase
Is there anything new I can say to express my love for you? No, sweet boy, there is nothing, but I must say the same things over again, like prayers to God, in order to keep eternal love fresh. The agedness of love disappears as it looks back to when it was first created, even though the passage of time would suggest it should by now have died.
Structure
Sonnet 108 is an English or Shakespearean sonnet. The English sonnet has three quatrains, followed by a final rhyming couplet. It follows the typical rhyme scheme of the form ABAB CDCD EFEF GG and is composed in iambic pentameter, a type of poetic metre based on five pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions. The 14th line exemplifies a regular iambic pentameter:
× / × / × / × / × / Where time and outward form would show it dead. (108.14)
The sonnet exhibits many metrical variations. There are initial reversals in lines 1, 5, 7, 8, and 13; as well as potential initial reversals in lines 9 and 10. For example:
/ × × / × / × / × / Finding the first conceit of love there bred, (108.13)
Lines 2 and 4 have final extrametrical syllables or feminine endings. Line 2 is particularly complex. It may be regular (apart from the feminine ending) — or it may suggest a rightward movement of an ictus (resulting in a four-position figure, × × / /
, sometimes referred to as a minor ionic), but if so, it is not clear which:
× × / / × /(×) × / × × / /(×) × / × / × / × / × /(×) Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit? (108.2)
- / = ictus, a metrically strong syllabic position. × = nonictus. (×) = extrametrical syllable.
The meter demands that line 8's "even" function as one syllable.[2]
Notes
- OCLC 4770201.
- ^ Booth 2000, p. 95.
References
- First edition and facsimile
- Shakespeare, William (1609). Shake-speares Sonnets: Never Before Imprinted. London: Thomas Thorpe.
- OCLC 458829162.
- Variorum editions
- OCLC 234756.
- Modern critical editions
- Atkins, Carl D., ed. (2007). Shakespeare's Sonnets: With Three Hundred Years of Commentary. Madison: OCLC 86090499.
- OCLC 2968040.
- Burrow, Colin, ed. (2002). The Complete Sonnets and Poems. OCLC 48532938.
- OCLC 32272082.
- OCLC 15018446.
- Mowat, Barbara A.; Werstine, Paul, eds. (2006). Shakespeare's Sonnets & Poems. OCLC 64594469.
- OCLC 46683809.
- OCLC 36806589.