Sonnet 94 (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: William Shakespeare
- First Published: 1609
- Type of Work: Sonnet
- Genres: Poetry, Sonnet
- Subjects: Values, Power, personal or social, Love or romance, Nature, Class consciousness, Emotions, Flowers, Inheritance or succession, Corruption, Property, Summer, Stoics
The Poem
Sonnet 94 is a typical English or Shakespearean sonnet: fourteen lines of iambic pentameter rhymed abab, cdcd, efef, gg. This rhyme scheme effectively divides the poem into three quatrains and a closing couplet, unlike the Italian or Petrarchan sonnet, which tends to be structured as an octave and sestet. In Sonnet 94, William Shakespeare’s first-person voice of the lover extols the virtue of stoic restraint and suggests that acting on emotions corrupts the natural nobility of a person’s character and, thus, compromises identity itself.
The first line...
[The entire page is 1339 words long]
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