Sonnet 83
Sonnet 83 | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Sonnet 83 is one of 154
Exegesis
The poet says that he has not seen that the young man needed to be described in a flattering way ("painting"), and so he has not attempted it. Line 4 ("I found, or thought I found") suggests that he has been rebuked for being silent, which is also suggested in line 9 ("this silence for my sin you did impute"). "Modern quill" suggests an inadequately ordinary kind of writing, and the whole of line 7 ("How far a modern quill doth come too short") contains a sexual inadequacy pun aimed at the rival poet or poets. The third quatrain is so insistent on the poet's silence ("silence" "dumb" "mute") that it suggests deliberateness. Line 12 suggests that when other poets attempt to bring the young man to life in their descriptions, they in fact do the opposite. ("When others would give life and bring a tomb.")[2][3][4]
Structure
Sonnet 83 is an English or Shakespearean sonnet, which has three quatrains, followed by a final rhyming couplet. It follows the rhyme scheme ABBA ABBA CDCD EE and is composed in iambic pentameter, a metre of five feet per line, with two syllables in each foot accented weak/strong. Most of the lines are examples of regular iambic pentameter, including the 7th line:
× / × / × / × / × / How far a modern quill doth come too short, / × × / × / × / × / Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow. (83.7-8)
- / = ictus, a metrically strong syllabic position. × = nonictus.
It is followed (in line 8) by an initial reversal, a common metrical variation.
The meter calls for line 6's "being" to function as 1 syllable.[5]
Interpretations
- Imelda Staunton, for the 2002 compilation album, When Love Speaks (EMI Classics)
Notes
- ISBN 9781408017975.
- ISBN 9781408017975.
- ^ Booth, Stephen, ed. Shakespeare's Sonnets (Rev. ed.). New Haven: Yale Nota Bene. (2000) p. 281
- ISBN 978-1-349-05443-5
- ^ Booth 2000, p. 282.
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.