Sonnet 17 is one of
154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
. It is the final poem of what are referred to by scholars as the
procreation sonnets
The procreation sonnets are Shakespeare's sonnets numbers 1 through 17.
Although Sonnet 15 does not directly refer to procreation, the single-minded urgings in the previous sonnets, may suggest to the reader that procreation is intended in the ...
(Sonnets 1-17) with which the
Fair Youth sequence opens.
Sonnet 17 questions the poet's descriptions of the sequence's
young man, believing that future generations will see these descriptions as exaggerations, if the youth does not make a copy of himself by fathering a child. As in
Sonnet 130
William Shakespeare's Sonnet 130 mocks the conventions of the showy and flowery courtly sonnets in its realistic portrayal of his mistress.
Synopsis
Sonnet 130 satirizes the concept of ideal beauty that was a convention of literature and art in ...
, Shakespeare shows himself to be hesitant about self-assured, flamboyant, and flowery proclamations of beauty.
Structure
Sonnet 17 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, ...
, consisting of 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
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 form's typical rhyme scheme: ''abab cdcd efef gg''. Sonnet 17 is written in
iambic pentameter
Iambic pentameter () is a type of metric line used in traditional English poetry and verse drama. The term describes the rhythm, or meter, established by the words in that line; rhythm is measured in small groups of syllables called "feet". "Iambi ...
, a form of
meter
The metre (British spelling) or meter (American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its prefi ...
based on five pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions. The sonnet's fourth line exemplifies a regular iambic pentameter:
× / × / × / × / × /
Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts. (17.4)
:/ = ''ictus'', a metrically strong syllabic position. × = ''nonictus''. (×) = extrametrical syllable.
The sixth line exhibits two fairly common variations, a final extrametrical syllable or ''feminine ending'', and the rightward movement of the first ictus (the resulting four-position figure,
× × / /
, is sometimes referred to as a ''minor ionic''):
× × / / × / × / × /(×)
And in fresh numbers number all your graces, (17.6)
The twelfth line features a mimetic stretching into two syllables of the word "stretched" to fit the metre:
× / × / × / × / × /
And stretchèd metre of an antique song: (17.12)
Synopsis and analysis
The poet asks who would believe his verse in the future ("in time to come"), if the youth's true excellence ("most high deserts") were to "fill" his verse. The poet's verse is inadequate; "heaven knows" is either an exclamation or part of the sentence: 'heaven knows that his verse is but a tomb' (with a hint of 'tome').
Shakespeare even goes as far as to say that the "tomb" hides half the youth's beauty.
Shakespeare argues that his descriptions are not strong enough, and do not do justice to the man's beauty ("If I could write the beauty of your eyes"). Again, if the poet could number all the youth's graces in "fresh numbers," then future times would accuse him of falsehood. Future ages would say, "this poet lies; / Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces." "Such heavenly touches" were the divine touches traditionally bestowed by the
Muse
In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Muses ( grc, Μοῦσαι, Moûsai, el, Μούσες, Múses) are the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the ...
s on the poet, or they are the strokes of the brush or chisel of a divinely inspired hand, which, having 'touched' an earthly face, makes it perfect.
As in
Sonnet 85 Shakespeare's precedent is a phrase from
Horace
Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his ' ...
's
Satires
Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or e ...
, "ad unguem / factus homo" (
Sermones 1.5.32) 'it is the touch that perfects the man,' which was an expression from carvers who in modelling gave the finishing touch to their work with the nail ("
unguem").
A future age, believing that such divine perfection could never ("ne'er") happen, would think the poet's efforts exaggeration. Shakespeare insists that his comparisons, even though they are limited in strength, are not exaggerations.
The poet's manuscripts ("my papers"), once they are discolored ("yellowed") with age, will be the subject of ridicule ("scorn'd"), just as "old men of less truth then tongue" are derided. What the youth is truly owed ("your true rights") could be dismissed in the future as "a poet's rage," or rejected as the "stretched metre of an antique song"; "stretched" firstly intends 'exaggerated,' but was used technically of earlier poetic styles.
"Antique song" is both ancient and distorted ('antic') song. The sonnet ends with a typical notion that should the young man have a child, he shall live both in the child and in the poet's rhyme.
Interpretations
*
Richard Attenborough
Richard Samuel Attenborough, Baron Attenborough, (; 29 August 192324 August 2014) was an English actor, filmmaker, and entrepreneur. He was the president of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and the British Academy of Film and Televisio ...
, for the 2002
compilation album
A compilation album comprises Album#Tracks, tracks, which may be previously released or unreleased, usually from several separate recordings by either one or several Performing arts#Performers, performers. If by one artist, then generally the tr ...
, ''
When Love Speaks
''When Love Speaks'' is a compilation album that features interpretations of William Shakespeare's sonnets – some spoken, some set to music – and excerpts from his plays by famous actors and musicians, released under EMI Classics in April ...
'' (
EMI Classics
EMI Classics was a record label founded by Thorn EMI in 1990 to reduce the need to create country-specific packaging and catalogues for internationally distributed classical music releases. After Thorn EMI demerged in 1996, its recorded musi ...
)
References
Further reading
*Baldwin, T. W. (1950). ''On the Literary Genetics of Shakspeare's Sonnets''. University of Illinois Press, Urbana.
*Hubler, Edwin (1952). ''The Sense of Shakespeare's Sonnets''. Princeton University Press, Princeton.
*Schoenfeldt, Michael (2007). ''The Sonnets: The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare's Poetry''. Patrick Cheney, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
External links
*
Paraphrase and analysis (Shakespeare-online)Facsimile of 1609 edition of sonnet 17 part 1Facsimile of 1609 edition of sonnet 17 part 2
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sonnet 017
British poems
Sonnets by William Shakespeare