Sonnet 104 is one of
154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet
William Shakespeare. It is a member of the
Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet expresses his love towards a young man.
Synopsis
The youth does not seem to have grown older at all in the three years that the poet has known him. Still, age comes on imperceptibly. If so, future ages will have to know that beauty died before future ages were born.
This sonnet deals with the destructive force of time as we grow older. The poet uses his friend as an example. He admires the fact that his friend has kept his youthful appearance over the time that he has known him.
Structure
Sonnet 104 is an English or Shakespearean
sonnet
A sonnet is a poetic form that originated in the poetry composed at the Court of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in the Sicilian city of Palermo. The 13th-century poet and notary Giacomo da Lentini is credited with the sonnet's invention, ...
. The English sonnet has three
quatrain
A quatrain is a type of stanza, or a complete poem, consisting of four lines.
Existing in a variety of forms, the quatrain appears in poems from the poetic traditions of various ancient civilizations including Persia, Ancient India, Ancient Greec ...
s, followed by a final rhyming
couplet
A couplet is a pair of successive lines of metre in poetry. A couplet usually consists of two successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (or closed) couplet, each of the ...
. 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 8th line exemplifies a regular iambic pentameter:
× / × / × / × / × /
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green. (104.8)
:/ = ''ictus'', a metrically strong syllabic position. × = ''nonictus''.
The 13th line has a mid-line reversal ("hear this"):
× / × / / × × / × /
For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred: (104.13)
This is a metrical variation that is more commonly encountered at the beginning of the line, and there is one definite (line 10) and several potential (lines 3, 4, 9, 11, and 14) examples of initial reversals in the sonnet.
The meter demands a two-syllable pronunciation for "dial" in line 9.
Notes
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sonnet 104
British poems
Sonnets by William Shakespeare