Sonnet 90
Sonnet 90 | |||||||
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Sonnet 90 is one of
Synopsis
The sonnet continues the themes of the breakdown of the relationship between the youth and the poet. The poet suggests that the youth should reject him now that everyone seems to be against him. The poet exhorts the youth not to wait to reject him until after these other, less important, sorrows have passed. At least if he is rejected now, his other problems will pale into insignificance.
Structure
Sonnet 90 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 10th line exemplifies a regular iambic pentameter:
× / × / × / × / × / When other petty griefs have done their spite, (90.10)
Lines 5 and 7 have a final extrametrical syllable or feminine ending. Line 7 may also be read as exhibiting another common metrical variation, the initial reversal:
/ × × / × / × / × / (×) Give not a windy night a rainy morrow, (90.7)
- / = ictus, a metrically strong syllabic position. × = nonictus. (×) = extrametrical syllable.
Initial reversals also occur in lines 3 and 6, and potentially 2. A potential mid-line reversal occurs in line 11 ("so shall").
Notes
- OCLC 4770201.
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.