Summary Sonnet 13 furthers Sonnet 12’s theme of death by again stating that death will forever vanquish the young man’s beauty if he dies without leaving a child. Some significance may lie in the fact that the poet refers to the youth as “you” in Sonnet 13 for the first […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Sonnet 13Summary and Analysis Sonnet 12
Summary Sonnet 12 again speaks of the sterility of bachelorhood and recommends marriage and children as a means of immortality. Additionally, the sonnet gathers the themes of Sonnets 5, 6, and 7 in a restatement of the idea of using procreation to defeat time. Sonnet 12 establishes a parallel way […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Sonnet 12Summary and Analysis Sonnet 11
Summary The poet now argues that the young man needs to have a child in order to maintain a balance in nature, for as the youth grows old and wanes, his child’s “fresh blood” will act as a balance to his own old age. The young man is irresponsible not […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Sonnet 11Summary and Analysis Sonnet 10
Summary Sonnet 10 repeats and extends the argument of Sonnet 9, with the added suggestion that the youth really loves no one. Clearly, the poet does not seriously believe the young man to be incapable of affection, for then there would be no point in the poet’s trying to maintain […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Sonnet 10Summary and Analysis Sonnet 9
Summary The poet imagines that the young man objects to the bliss of marriage on the grounds that he might die young anyway or that he might die and leave a bereaved widow and an orphaned child. To these arguments, the poet replies that should the young man marry, have […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Sonnet 9Summary and Analysis Sonnet 8
Summary In this sonnet, the poet compares a single musical note to the young man and a chord made up of many notes to a family. The marriage of sounds in a chord symbolizes the union of father, mother, and child. The first twelve lines elaborate a comparison between music […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Sonnet 8Summary and Analysis Sonnet 7
Summary Sonnet 7 compares human life to the passage of the sun (“gracious light”) from sunrise to sunset. The sun’s rising in the morning symbolizes the young man’s youthful years: Just as we watch the “sacred majesty” of the ever-higher sun, so too does the poet view the youth. The […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Sonnet 7Summary and Analysis Sonnet 6
Summary Sonnet 6 continues the winter imagery from the previous sonnet and furthers the procreation theme. Winter, symbolizing old age, and summer, symbolizing youth, are diametrically opposed. The poet begs the young man not to die childless — “ere thou be distill’d” — without first making “sweet some vial.” Here, […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Sonnet 6Summary and Analysis Sonnet 5
Summary Sonnet 5 compares nature’s four seasons with the stages of the young man’s life. Although the seasons are cyclical, his life is linear, and hours become tyrants that oppress him because he cannot escape time’s grasp. Time might “frame / The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,” meaning […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Sonnet 5Summary and Analysis Sonnet 4
Summary The themes of narcissism and usury (meant here as a form of use) are most developed in this sonnet, with its references to wills and testaments. The terms “unthrifty,” “legacy,” “bequest,” and “free” (which in line 4 means to be generous), imply that nature’s generosity should be matched by […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Sonnet 4