Analysis of Sonnet 54
Edmund Spenser 1552 (London) – 1599 (London)
Of this worlds theatre in which we stay,
My love like the spectator ydly sits
Beholding me that all the pageants play,
Disguysing diversly my troubled wits.
Sometimes I joy when glad occasion fits,
And mask in myrth lyke to a comedy:
Soone after when my joy to sorrow flits,
I waile and make my woes a tragedy.
Yet she, beholding me with constant eye,
Delights not in my merth nor rues my smart:
But when I laugh she mocks, and when I cry
She laughs and hardens evermore her heart.
What then can move her? if nor merth nor mone,
She is no woman, but a senceless stone.
Scheme | ABABBCBCDEDEFF |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111000111 111010011 0101110101 111101 0111110101 0101110100 1101111101 1101110100 1101011101 0110111111 1111110111 110101001 1111011111 111101011 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 563 |
Words | 111 |
Sentences | 6 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 14 |
Lines Amount | 14 |
Letters per line (avg) | 32 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 444 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 109 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 30, 2023
- 33 sec read
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"Sonnet 54" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/9201/sonnet-54>.
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