Sonnet 3 is one of
154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
. It is often referred to as a
procreation sonnet that falls within the
Fair Youth sequence.
In the
sonnet, the speaker is urging the man being addressed to preserve something of himself and something of the image he sees in the mirror by fathering a child. The “young man” of this and other sonnets is a subject of debate. Some think it may be based on
William Herbert, others consider
Henry Wriothesley. There are other candidates as well.
Structure
The poem takes the form of a Shakespearean sonnet: fourteen
decasyllabic
Decasyllable (Italian: ''decasillabo'', French: ''décasyllabe'', Serbian: ''десетерац'', ''deseterac'') is a poetic meter of ten syllables used in poetic traditions of syllabic verse. In languages with a stress accent (accentual ...
,
iambic pentameter
Iambic pentameter () is a type of metric line used in traditional English poetry and verse drama. The term describes the rhythm, or meter, established by the words in that line; rhythm is measured in small groups of syllables called " feet". "Iam ...
lines, that form three
quatrains
A quatrain is a type of stanza, or a complete poem, consisting of four lines.
Existing in a variety of forms, the quatrain appears in poems from the poetic traditions of various ancient civilizations including Persia, Ancient India, Ancient Gree ...
and a concluding rhyming
couplet. It follows the form's
rhyme scheme
A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhymes at the end of each line of a poem or song. It is usually referred to by using letters to indicate which lines rhyme; lines designated with the same letter all rhyme with each other.
An example of the ABAB r ...
: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Each line of the first quatrain of Sonnet 3 exhibits a final extrametrical syllable or ''feminine ending''. The first line additionally exhibits an initial reversal:
/ × × / × / × / × / (×)
Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest (3.1)
:/ = ''ictus'', a metrically strong syllabic position. × = ''nonictus''. (×) = extrametrical syllable.
Analysis
In this sonnet, the poet is urging the 'fair youth' to preserve something of himself and something of the image he sees in the mirror by fathering a child, "Now is the time that face should form another".
The message is reiterated in the last lines of the poem: "But if thou live, remember'd not to be, / Die single, and thine image dies with thee." Not only will the youth die, but so will his image — the one in his mirror, and also his image that may be seen borne by his yet-to-be child.
References
Further reading
*Baldwin, T. W. ''On the Literary Genetics of Shakspeare's Sonnets''. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1950.
*Hubler, Edwin. ''The Sense of Shakespeare's Sonnets''. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952.
External links
*
A paraphrase of the sonnet
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sonnet 003
British poems
Sonnets by William Shakespeare