essay summary

Question 1

intro

Answer 1

‘Sonnet 29’ by William Shakespeare is a sonnet that goes into thoughtful detail about the experience of a character. Shakespearean sonnets were written during the Renaissance, a time of great artistic development. They almost always followed rules in terms of meter, rhyme scheme and the subject of love and the rewarding ways it makes us feel. However, sonnet 29 in many ways breaks with these conventions in order to highlight the depth of the narrators experience. Through effective use of poetic features such as volts, synecdoche, word choice, imagery and repetition, Shakespeare engages the reader in the experience of the narrator and teaches a timeless lesson about the redemptive qualities of true love.

Question 2

para 1 - point

• evidence
• technique
• analysis
• link

Answer 2

p - The sonnet begins with a situation of considerable despair, self pity and isolation for the narrator.
e - ‘When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,’
t - conditional structure ‘when,’
- synecdoche ‘men’s eyes’
- word-choice ‘fortune’
a - conditional structure lets reader know that next 7 lines isn’t response to specific event but narrator often feels judged + outcast
- synecdoche brings judgement of others into poem
- eyes don’t just mean narrator is being looked at contemptuously but eyes also mean they are judged
- word choice; roman religious belief of fortune being goddess of luck; fortune has power over narrator, the power to give then withdraw grace
l - Shakespeare expresses the melancholy and the lack of control the narrator has by giving ‘fortune’ and ‘eyes’ their own intelligence, and thus the capacity to negatively affect the narrator’s life.

Question 3

para 2

Answer 3

p - Furthermore, Shakespeare intensifies the extremity of the narrator’s situation by exploring their separation from religion, and God himself.
e - ‘And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,’
t - personification of heaven by word choice ‘deaf’
- heaven as metonym for god
- word-choice ‘bootless’
a - personification lrk heaven could listen to narrator but chose not to
- metonym explores rejection by god himself
- word-choice; ref. to atonement, failed prayers
l - This shows the narrator no longer has hopes for the promised relief the afterlife will bring and feeling rejected by God.

Question 4

para 3

Answer 4

p - Importantly, each of the complaints the narrator has lets the reader know that the narrator’s social status, wealth, appearance and skill has great control over them and that perhaps defining themselves in relation to these aspects of life is what results in their self pity and melancholy.
e - ‘Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,’
t - word choice ‘hope’
a - narrator is envious of hopeful people, links with financial language used throughout
l - The narrator’s envy shows they feel their future is bleak and don’t see their situation improving.

Question 5

para 4

Answer 5

p - However, Sonnet 29 is not only a sonnet about despair and isolation; it is also about love and the way that it soothes and repairs the troubles we experience.
e - ‘(Like to the lark at break of day arising’.
t - symbolism of lark
- simile of lark
a - symbolism; narrator is now organised, prayers are reaching heavens
l - They may not be in the social position they wish to be in or have the wealth they desire and their prayers may not be heard by god, but for them, this love offers a different kind of riches.

Question 6

para 5

Answer 6

p - Aside from use of word choice, synecdoche, metonym and imagery, Shakespeare creates variation in the rhythm of the sonnet using trochee and structure. These techniques are effective in portraying the narrators intense negative emotions.
e/t - trochee ‘deaf heaven’
- poem is one long sentence
a - trochee creates variation in rhytm and draws out narrator’s misery and abandonment
- long sentence embodies anxious, obsessive energy and suggests narrators lost contorl of speech
l - This suggests the narrator is so upset and disturbed that they have lost control of themselves and their language and are rambling anxiously.

Question 7

conclusion

Answer 7

Shakespearean sonnets are among the most celebrated sequences of poems in English language, and Sonnet 29 provides various significant illustrations of why this is. Shakespeare makes effective use of poetic features to explore the sonnet’s central concern. We have seen how an unconventional structure and variation in rhythm, for example, the trochee in the first quatrain and the absence of grammatical breaks, have a powerful impact in portraying the negative emotions felt by the narrator. And the archetypal ‘turn’ that Shakespeare establishes in the third quatrain allows him to convey a classic lesson about the redemptive qualities of love, transforming a melancholy lament on the overwhelming pressures of social status and wealth into a glorious celebration of the sonnet itself.