Sonnet 62
Sonnet 62 | |||||||
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Sonnet 62 is one of
Structure
Sonnet 62 is an English or Shakespearean sonnet, with three quatrains followed by a final rhyming couplet. It follows the form's typical rhyme scheme, ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, and is composed in a type of poetic metre known as iambic pentameter based on five pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions. The sixth line exemplifies a regular iambic pentameter:
× / × / × / × / × / No shape so true, no truth of such account, (62.6)
- / = ictus, a metrically strong syllabic position. × = nonictus.
The first line (as do some others) has an initial reversal:
/ × × / × / × / × / Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye, (62.1)
Reversals can be used to bring special emphasis to words — especially action verbs, as in line ten's "beated" and line fourteen's "painting" — a practice Marina Tarlinskaja calls rhythmical italics.[2]
Source and analysis
The
Line 7 has posed some problems. Edward Dowden hypothesized that "for myself" meant "for my own satisfaction," and certain editors suggest that "do" be amended to "so." Consensus, however, has settled on some version of the gloss of Nicolaus Delius: "I define my own worth for myself," with "do" as an intensifier.
For "beated" in line 10,
Helen Vendler sees the speaker of the poem as harshly criticizing his own weakness and foolishness, but for most critics the poem is lighter in mood. Though it echoes other poems in the sequence which present the connections created by love as painful, in this poem, the presence of the beloved is comforting rather than terrifying.
Interpretations
- John Sessions, for the 2002 compilation album, When Love Speaks (EMI Classics)
Notes
- OCLC 4770201.
- ISBN 978-1-4724-3028-1.
References
- Baldwin, T. W. On the Literary Genetics of Shakspeare's Sonnets. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1950.
- 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.