Edmund Spencer Sonnet 75 is taken from Edmund Spenders poem Amaretto which was published in 1 595, The poem has been fragmented Into 89 short sonnets that combined make up the whole of the poem. The name Amaretto itself means “little notes” or “little cupids. ” This poem is said to have been written on Spender’s love affair and eventual marriage to Elizabeth Bayle, his second wife. Sonnet 75 centers on the Immortality of spiritual love and the temporary of physical love. In the seventy-fifth sonnet of Amaretto, the line scheme of three quatrains and a rhyming couplet is employed.
The rhyme scheme Is the typical Spenserian sonnet format of the first quatrain being ABA, the second being BCC, the third CDC and the couplet E. It follows the meter of the iambic pentameter. The first quatrain has a narrative feel to it because of the beginning “One day I The second quatrain starts with a dialogue by a female, most probably the beloved. The third quatrain is an answer again in a conversation because of the use of “quote l. ” The couplet at the end gives the conclusion like a fact because It uses the present participle tense.
Sonnet 75 Is a lyric because it tells of the poet’s personal experience. Spencer writes this sonnet in the typical Patriarchal style. It is written in the pursuit of a woman whom he loves. The rhyme scheme coincides with the Patriarchal model. The whole sonnet reeks of the use of Imagery. The very opening lines, “One day I wrote her name upon the strand, But came the waves and washed it away:” create a Blvd Image of the sea-side. Other excerpts from the sonnet that produce a visual effect are “decay,” “wiped out,” “die in dust,” and “in the heavens write your glorious name.
While the first three evoke negative images, the last one paints a beautiful, fantastical picture In the mind. The short sonnet Incorporates alliteration very often, for instance, “die in dust,” “verse your virtue,” “love shall live,” “later life,” etc. The sounds that have been continuously been employed are /d/, ‘w/ and Ill. Alliteration throughout is helping form the Images. The sound in “waves and washed it away” help create an audio impact of the swishing waves. The repetitive ‘d/ gives an ominous sound and is used for all such words, for example “decay,” “die,” “death,” etc.
There Is also repetition of certain words. “Vain” appears twice in one line. Then, the concept of mortality is conveyed through “mortal,” “immortality” and “eternity. The sonnet is rife with symbolism. The sea alludes to the distance that is between the lover and his beloved which Is causing pain to the lover. The writing on the sand refers to the lover’s insistence on making a worldly impact on his beloved. The waves are a constant reminder of the cruelty of love, haunting again and again. By washing away the name of the beloved, the waves act as torrents of torture.
The sea-side or beach also symbolizes a peaceful, comfortable place where the lover unreservedly expresses himself. The lover’s writing on the sand can be a reference to mans inherent desire to eternal his being to be remembered forever. The waves here signify time. The erasing of the name by water signifies the transient nature of human life. It points towards the futility of man’s aspirations for immortality, irrespective of how many times he may try to make his life meaningful, it is pointless. Everything is transitory and will eventually be destroyed. Personification is an important element in the sonnet.
The sea or waves are given human qualities. It “washed,” and “made my Payne his pray. ” Washing and preying or inflicting pain upon someone are human qualities. The poet has dexterously presented a contrast between the earthly and the celestial ideas and things. While in the first half of the poem, time and nature destroy the poet’s writing and attempts to immortality it; in the second half the poet immoralities his eternal, spiritual love through his writings. One of the indirect implications of the typical fifteenth-century women being docile and subservient can be found in the waves being given a masculine quality.
Normally, nature is associated with the female entity because both are responsible for giving and sustaining life. Here, however, the author’s reason for giving a masculine identity to nature must be because of the malignant role it is playing. Edmund Spender’s Sonnet 75 from Amorist is not only an exquisite piece of Elizabethan times, it portrays the quintessential poetry of the time as well. His optimal employment of literary techniques of form, rhyme, imagery, personification and alliteration give the sonnet a wholesome structure and an pleasant quality.
Theme : When he writes her name on the sand, her name is washed away by the waves. He tries again and again but his all attempts when the tide is in will be washed. The lover here emphasize that allegorically; The tide represents “the time” and The sand of seashore represents his “memories” The word “tide” refers to the word “time” also in means of written and “sand” also refers to his memories because memory is a reflection of the past and it has a particular shape in minds to indicate particular moments and events which we experienced. UT this shape in time becomes uncertain as the time passed memory skips over some important or trivial details. So everything can be forgotten, ,n memory there can be nothing everlasting JUST LiKE HER NAME ON THE SAND OF SEASHORE.
The poet has a great longing to immortality her name. But he deduces that nature wants to explain that love is temporary. Because when he wrote her name the tide ashes it away. Then the lady speaks that his effort is in vain he can not change the intrinsic nature of the mortality. She believes every mortal thing will have perished. She is offended by his attempt to immortality her.
But the lover believes when the love becomes immortal her name will be written in heaven. THE AMARETTO Edmund Spencer – Sonnet 75 One day I wrote her name upon the strand, But came the waves and washed it away: Again I wrote it with a second hand, Vain man, said she, that doest in vain assay A mortal thing so to immortality, For I myself shall like to this decay, And eek my name be wiped out likewise. Not so (quote l), let baser things devise To die in dust, but you shall live by fame: My verse your virtues rare shall eternity, And in the heavens write your glorious name.
Where when’s Death shall all the world subdue, Out love shall live, and later life renew. ” One day I wrote her name upon the strand ” This a case of Hyperbola because the normal order of wards has been changed. The ordinary syntactic order world has been “l wrote her name upon the strand”. “Again I wrote it with a second hand, But came the tide, and made my Payne his pray ” This is a case of Transferred Epithet [ Hyperbola ] The epithet ‘second ‘ properly longs to time rather than to hand.
It may also a case of personification since tide’ is seen as hunting down the efforts of the poet. ‘ For I myself shall like to this decay, And eek my name by rupee out likewise” This is a case of simile. The poet points to the similarity between the destruction of the engraved name by the sea and the death caused to the lady by time, the similarity is explicitly stated by the use of the word ‘like’. “Not so,’ quad l, ” let baser things device ” To die in dust but you shall live by fame ‘- This is a case of antithesis where two opposed ideas are balanced against each other to the same effect.
The two ideas contrasted are the idea of the meaner things being reduced to dust by time on the one hand, and the idea of the superior beloved ‘ transcending this by fame, on the other. “Where when as death shall all the world subdue, Our love shall live, and later life renew ” It is a case of Antithesis since the two opposed ideas of the death of the world This is also a cause of Epigram. Ordinarily, the idea of the renewal of love after life may seem absurd, but on thinking more deeply one realizes that their love would indeed be renewed by the later generations of lovers who would model their love on the poets.
