Sonnet 152 is a

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, ...

by William Shakespeare. It is one of a collection of 154 sonnets, dealing with themes such as the passage of time, love, beauty and mortality, first published in a 1609.

Synopsis

Although concluding the sequence of '' The Dark Lady'' sonnets (Sonnets 127-152), sonnet 152 provides no happy ending to the series. This sonnet tells of how the narrator judges his mistress, but then he realizes that he cannot judge her, as he as well has been sinful.

Structure

Sonnet 152 is an English or Shakespearean

. 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 12th line exemplifies a regular iambic pentameter:

×   /     ×    /   × /       ×   /     ×   / 
Or made them swear against the thing they see; (152.12)

The 2nd line has a final extrametrical syllable or ''feminine ending'':

 ×    /  ×     /    ×   /     ×  /  ×     / (×)
But thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing; (152.2)

:/ = ''ictus'', a metrically strong syllabic position. × = ''nonictus''. (×) = extrametrical syllable. Lines 4, 5, 7, 9, and 11 also have feminine endings. Line 10 begins with a common metrical variant, an initial reversal:

/     ×    ×  /      ×   /      ×  /   ×  / 
Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy; (152.10)

An initial reversal potentially occurs in line 11, and mid-line reversals potentially occur in lines 7 and 9.

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sonnet 152 British poems Sonnets by William Shakespeare