Analysis of Sonnet XXIII: The Curious Wits
Sir Philip Sidney 1554 (Penshurst, Kent) – 1586 (Zutphen)
The curious wits seeing dull pensiveness
Bewray itself in my long settled eyes,
Whence those same fumes of melancholy rise,
With idle pains, and missing aim, do guess.
Some that know how my spring I did address,
Deem that my Muse some fruit of knowledge plies:
Others, because the Prince my service tries,
Think that I think state errors to redress.
But harder judges judge ambition's rage,
Scourge of itself, still climbing slipp'ry place,
Holds my young brain cativ'd in golden cage.
Oh Fools, or over-wise, alas the race
Of all my thoughts hath neither stop nor start,
But only Stella's eyes and Stella's heart.
Scheme | AAAA AAAA BAB ACC |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 010011011 101011101 111111001 1101010111 111111111 1111111101 1001011101 1111110101 11010111 110111011 111110101 1111010101 1111110111 1101010101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 622 |
Words | 107 |
Sentences | 5 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 3, 3 |
Lines Amount | 14 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 122 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 26 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 33 sec read
- 36 Views
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"Sonnet XXIII: The Curious Wits" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 11 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/35369/sonnet-xxiii%3A-the-curious-wits>.
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