Analysis of Sonnet XLI: Why Do I Speak of Joy
Michael Drayton 1563 (Hartshill) – 1631 (London)
Why do I speak of joy, or write of love,
When my heart is the very den of horror,
And in my soul the pains of Hell I prove,
With all his torments and infernal terror?
What should I say? What yet remains to do?
My brain is dry with weeping all too long,
My sighs be spent in uttering my woe,
And I want words wherewith to tell my wrong;
But, still distracted in Love's lunacy,
And, bedlam-like, thus raging in my grief,
Now rail upon her hair, then on her eye,
Now call her Goddess, then I call her thief,
Now I deny her, then I do confess her,
Now do I curse her, then again I bless her.
Scheme | ABCBDEFEGHIHBB |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111111111 11110101110 0011011111 1111001010 1111110111 1111110111 1111010011 011111111 1101001100 0101110011 1101011101 1101011101 11010111010 11110101110 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 608 |
Words | 125 |
Sentences | 5 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 14 |
Lines Amount | 14 |
Letters per line (avg) | 32 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 442 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 121 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 38 sec read
- 73 Views
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"Sonnet XLI: Why Do I Speak of Joy" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/28139/sonnet-xli%3A-why-do-i-speak-of-joy>.
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