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READ THIS
The poet explains that, at times when the world seems set against him, when it appears that
fortune is abandoning him and he begins to wish that he were better off as regards to friends
and creative talents, then all he has to do is to think of his loved one and his state of mind will
instantly improve.
ABOUT THE POET
William Shakespeare is generally regarded as the greatest of all English playwrights, which is
why his plays are prescribed so relentlessly.
He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564 and spent all his youth there. At the age of 18, he
married Anne Hathaway with whom he had three children.
At about the age of 25, he moved to London where he began a successful career in acting,
realising too his amazing talent for writing. He would eventually become the part-owner of a
company which called itself The Lord Chamberlain's Men (later referred to as the King's
Men.
He wrote a total of 38 plays as well as 154 sonnets. He also has two little known longer poems
to his name.
He would eventually return to Stratford-upon-Avon in 1613, where he would die just three years
later at the rather young age of 52. So young for someone who accomplished so much!
Have you looked at the questions
in the right column?
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TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer
the following questions:
This poem is obviously an Elizabethan sonnet.
[Need help?]
This sonnet does, of course, carry the distinctive rhyming scheme of a Shakespearian version,
with 3 quatrains followed by a rhyming couplet:
abab cdcd efef gg
The rhyming couplet brings the sonnet to a conclusion -- something that is so typically
Shakespearian.
One problem, though, is that Shakespeare does appear to have used here the argumentative
scheme of a Petrarchan sonnet, i.e. there appears to be an Octave which argues the poet's
depressed state, while there is a Sestet which reveals a distinctly positive tone.
One could therefore argue for an Octave and a Sestet of the Petrarchan style, although the use
of the rhyming couplet is so distinctly Elizabethan, isn't it?
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"When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate."
- Why has "Fortune" been written with an uppercase "F"? (2)
[Need help?]
This is a personification of "Fortune", isn't it? Fortune becomes a person or Being
who assumes control over the poet and over his life.
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- Do you think that the poet is "weeping" about something specific? (3)
[Need help?]
No, it doesn't seem at all likely that the poet has anything specific in mind. He is simply in a
thoroughly depressed state of mind generally, feeling himself to be an outcast in terms of riches
and friendship.
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- Why should the poet "look upon myself and curse my fate"? (2)
[Need help?]
The poet appears to be doing what so many young people like to do, i.e. look inside themselves
and become thoroughly morose and miserable. This was once known as melancholia,
the state of incredible sadness which so many young people relish -- a state which is
accompanied with many sighs. There is no external thing causing it -- just upset hormones
or whatever. The poet is generally prospering but, right at this very moment, he feels that fate
is turning against him.
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"Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least."
- Why would the poet wish to have what other people have? (4)
[Need help?]
It's a "keeping up with the Jones's" scenario, isn't it? Except that the only people truly
keeping up with the Jones's are the debt collectors! When one thinks of Shakespeare, one
thinks of a most successful poet and playwright. And yet, at the very moment portrayed in this
poem, the poet appears to see everyone around him as being successful and himself as having
no redeeming qualities whatever. Luckily he didn't stay in that profoundly negative state of mind
for long or else he would never have become the famous person that he did.
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- Express in your own words "Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, | Featur'd like
him, like him with friends possess'd". (4)
[Need help?]
The poet wishes that he could be like other people who appear so positive in life, having the
appearance of a person who is surrounded by friends.
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"Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate."
- Why does the poet speak of "haply" and not "happily"? (2)
[Need help?]
It's all a question of the number of syllables in the line. The Elizabethan sonnet needed to have
10 syllables in the line, broken up into five feet of unstressed and stressed syllables -- called
"iambic pentameters". If the poet had used the word "happily", it would have
given him eleven syllables. He therefore contracts the triple syllabic word into a bi-syllabic one,
which gives us "haply".
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- To whom does the poet refer when he speaks of "thee"? Why does he not use the
pronoun "you"? (2)
[Need help?]
The poet is employing the most formal use of the word. Back in Shakespeare's time, people
addressed important personages as "thee": kings, queens, gods. By doing so, the poet
is able to enhance the importance of the subject whom he is addressing. That person therefore
becomes very special indeed.
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"For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings,
That then I scorn to change my state with kings."
- What is the point of this rhyming couplet? (4)
[Need help?]
The rhyming couplet brings the sonnet to its successful conclusion. The poet has been
expressing his feelings of sadness but concludes that thoughts of this special person make him
feel so wonderful that he wouldn't dream of changing places with anyone. Indeed, that special
person bestows a renewed zest for life on the poet.
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