Student Question
How will the speaker's beloved's name remain immortal in Edmund Spenser's "One Day I Wrote Her Name Upon the Strand"?
Quick answer:
In "One Day I Wrote Her Name Upon the Strand," the speaker intends to immortalize his beloved's name through poetry. He asserts that his verse will "eternise" her virtues and inscribe her name in the heavens, thereby achieving eternal fame. This reflects the Renaissance sonnet tradition of preserving love and virtue in literature. Notably, the poem omits the beloved's actual name, possibly highlighting the speaker's struggle to immortalize something mortal.
The speaker in Edmund Spenser's "One Day I Wrote Her Name Upon the Strand" plans to immortalize his beloved in verse. He describes this in lines eleven and twelve when he states, "My verse your virtues rare shall eternise,/ And in the heavens write your glorious name." The word "eternise" is an antiquated term which means "to make eternal."
This poem is a sonnet, and many sonnets attempted to immortalize love or lovers in verse. Writing in the same time period as Edmund Spenser, Henry Constable wrote a collection of sonnets titled Diana containing many poems about his love for Diana as well as praise for her many virtues. Similar collections from the era are Samuel Daniel's Sonnets to Delia and Thomas Lodge's Phillis.
What is missing from Spenser's poem is the actual name of the woman to whom the speaker is referring. It is an interesting omission considering the subject matter of the piece. Perhaps in some way Spenser is agreeing with the speaker's beloved when she says, "Vain man...that dost in vain assay/ A mortal thing so to immortalize."
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