Sonnet 90 - Shakespeare - Poetry Flashcards
What is Sonnet 90 about?
The speaker is suffering, feeling negative about everything including his love. He sees this as the most important thing in his life and the loss of it would make everything else seem petty. This is a cynical, negative view of love - the speaker is seemingly expecting the relationship to break down.
What form is Sonnet 90?
Shakespearean sonnet - iambic pentameter. Constant beat emphasises the feeling of constant suffering.
What is Sonnet 90’s message about love?
Suffering in life is nothing compared to the suffering caused by losing a loved one. It is a cynical and negative view on the depleted relationship, however the poem carries a romantic sentiment by showing the pain the speaker would feel at the loss of this love.
The speaker wants his love to, if they ever will, hate them and leave them now when his life is causing him suffering already, rather than leaving him later after he has gotten through his current sufferings.
“Then hate me when thou wilt, if ever, now”
All other sorrows, though large at the time, would be considered minuscule in comparison with the loss of his loved one.
“And other strains of woe, which now seem woe, / Compared with lack of thee will not seem so.”
Poem contains a semantic field of the military which emphasises his suffering, comparing it to that of a conquered soldier.
“Ah do not, when my heart hath scaped this sorrow, / Come in the rearward of a conquered woe”
Pathetic fallacy is used to emphasise the sadness and grief.
“Give not a windy night a rainy morrow”
