Sonnet 9
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Sonnet 9is one of154 sonnetswritten by the English playwright and poetWilliam Shakespeare.It is aprocreation sonnetwithin theFair Youthsequence.
BecauseSonnet 10pursues and amplifies the theme of "hatred against the world" which appears rather suddenly in the final couplet of this sonnet, one may well say thatSonnet 9andSonnet 10form a diptych, even though the form of linkage is different from the case ofSonnets 5 and 6orSonnets 15 and 16.
Structure
[edit]Sonnet 9 is an English or Shakespeareansonnet.Sonnets of this type comprise 14 lines, containing threequatrainsand a finalcouplet,with therhyme schemeABAB CDCD EFEF GG. They are composed iniambic pentameterametrical linebased on five pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions. Ambiguity can exist in thescansionof some lines. The weak words (lacking any tonic stress) beginning the poem allow the first line to be scanned as a regular pentameter:
× / × / × / × / × / Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye (9.1)
- / =ictus,a metrically strong syllabic position. × =nonictus.
...or as containing an initial reversal:
/ × × / × / × / × / Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye (9.1)
Synopsis and analysis
[edit]Sonnet 9 argues again that the so-called "Fair Youth" should marry and father children. The poet first asks if the reason he has remained single was a "fear" that, if he were to die, he would leave some woman a widow and in tears ( "to wet a widow's eye" ). The poet also exclaims, "Ah," a musing and a sigh before the wailing to come. If the "Fair Youth" were to die without children, then the world would lament his absence as might a wife without a mate. The public world would be his widow and forever weep because he has left behind no figure of himself.[2]
Shakespeareargues that the young man should at least leave his widow with child before he dies, and that at least a widow will always have the image of her children to console her after her loss. Shakespeare then talks in the language of economics, concluding that if beauty is not put to (procreative) use and is hoarded as if by a non-yielding, sexual miser ( "kept unused" ), he will destroy it. The sonnet ends with the scathing declaration that if the young man does not marry and have children, he is committing "murderous shame" upon himself. Since no outgoing "love" dwells in his "bosom", he is likeNarcissus,guilty of self-love.[2]
References
[edit]- ^Pooler, C[harles] Knox, ed. (1918).The Works of Shakespeare: Sonnets.The Arden Shakespeare [1st series]. London: Methuen & Company.OCLC4770201.
- ^abLarsen, Kenneth J."Sonnet 9".Essays on Shakespeare's Sonnets.Retrieved23 November2014.
Further reading
[edit]- 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.
- First edition and facsimile
- Variorum editions
- Alden, Raymond Macdonald,ed. (1916).The Sonnets of Shakespeare.Boston:Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.OCLC234756.
- Rollins, Hyder Edward,ed. (1944).A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare: The Sonnets [2 Volumes].Philadelphia:J. B. Lippincott & Co.OCLC6028485.—Volume IandVolume IIat theInternet Archive
- Modern critical editions
- Atkins, Carl D., ed. (2007).Shakespeare's Sonnets: With Three Hundred Years of Commentary.Madison:Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.ISBN978-0-8386-4163-7.OCLC86090499.
- Booth, Stephen,ed. (2000) [1st ed. 1977].Shakespeare's Sonnets(Rev. ed.). New Haven:Yale Nota Bene.ISBN0-300-01959-9.OCLC2968040.
- Burrow, Colin, ed. (2002).The Complete Sonnets and Poems.The Oxford Shakespeare.Oxford:Oxford University Press.ISBN978-0192819338.OCLC48532938.
- Duncan-Jones, Katherine,ed. (2010) [1st ed. 1997].Shakespeare's Sonnets.Arden Shakespeare,third series (Rev. ed.). London:Bloomsbury.ISBN978-1-4080-1797-5.OCLC755065951.—1st editionat theInternet Archive
- Evans, G. Blakemore,ed. (1996).The Sonnets.The New Cambridge Shakespeare.Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-0521294034.OCLC32272082.
- Kerrigan, John,ed. (1995) [1st ed. 1986].The Sonnets; and, A Lover's Complaint.New Penguin Shakespeare(Rev. ed.).Penguin Books.ISBN0-14-070732-8.OCLC15018446.
- Mowat, Barbara A.; Werstine, Paul, eds. (2006).Shakespeare's Sonnets & Poems.Folger Shakespeare Library.New York:Washington Square Press.ISBN978-0743273282.OCLC64594469.
- Orgel, Stephen,ed. (2001).The Sonnets.The Pelican Shakespeare (Rev. ed.). New York:Penguin Books.ISBN978-0140714531.OCLC46683809.
- Vendler, Helen,ed. (1997).The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets.Cambridge, Massachusetts:The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.ISBN0-674-63712-7.OCLC36806589.
External links
[edit]- Works related toSonnet 9 (Shakespeare)at Wikisource
- Paraphrase of sonnet in modern language
- Analysis of the sonnet