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Need help with a sonnet by Shakespeare

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ESL Forum | English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms

Editing required. "An old woman suffered..." | Composition: I would be for the death penalty since that the justice system...

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Wed Jul 02, 2008 18:50 pm Need help with a sonnet by Shakespeare

Hi

I need your help with this sonnet. I tried to understand it myself but to no avail. My queries and analysis are in red. Please go through them.

Quote:

No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell which bell?
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell: That worms will eat my body in my grave?
nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it; for I love you so,
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on my then should make you woe. If you miss me a lot and my memories sadden you, you will soon forget me. No, I do not get it!
O! if, I say, you look upon this verse,
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,
But let your love even with my life decay;
Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
And mock you with me after I am gone.

Many thanks,

Tom

Tom
I'm a Communicator ;-)

Joined: 30 May 2006
Posts: 1985

Wed Jul 02, 2008 20:52 pm Need help with a sonnet by Shakespeare

Hi Tom,

Here my suggestions:

Quote:

Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell which bell?

I'd say funeral bells.

Quote:

From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell: That worms will eat my body in my grave?

Most likely, yes.

Quote:

nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it; for I love you so,
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on my then should make you woe. If you miss me a lot and my memories sadden you, you will soon forget me. No, I do not get it!

I love you so much that I don't want you to remember me if you read these lines so that your sweet thoughts remain unclouded and you don't need to suffer.

I'd say Shakespeare wrote better stuff than this...

Take care,

Ralf
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Thu Jul 03, 2008 23:44 pm Need help with a sonnet by Shakespeare

I would vote with Ralf on the parts in red.

Tom wrote:

I tried to understand it myself but to no avail.

I think it is quite difficult to understand, unless it is read in its proper position in the sequence of sonnets. This is sonnet no. 71, and it occurs at the point in the "story" where Shakespeare has begun to express his disillusion with the object of his affections (whom we can call "X").

In this context, the poem has an air of irony or sarcasm: Shakespeare is saying "don't be too distraught, when I'm gone", although he knows that X won't be very distraught at all.

This is underlined by the otherwise puzzling conclusion: "Let your love even with my life decay [don't make too much fuss], lest the wise world should look into your moan [in case an astute person should examine your sentiments more closely], and mock you with me after I am gone [and satirise the quality of your affection/mock you as I do now]".

There is also an interesting paradox in the second quatrain:

Quote:

Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it; for I love you so,
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then should make you woe.

i.e. "forget me, when you read these lines, in which I tell you to forget me" – obviously an impossibility.

("Vile" by the way had a sense of "of low value", "of low status", in Shakespeare's day, rather than "repellent" or "disgusting".)

Best wishes,

MrP

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