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Sonnet 15 |
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When I consider every thing that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment,
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;
When I perceive that men as plants increase,
Cheered and cheque'd even by the self-same sky,
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,
And wear their brave state out of memory;
Then the conceit of this inconstant stay
Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,
Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay,
To change your day of youth to sullied night;
And all in war with Time for love of you,
As he takes from you, I engraft you new.
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| –William Shakespeare |
Shakespeare's Sonnet 15, a procreation sonnet, is a reflection on the destruction of Time and Decay, and its effect on the young man to whom the sonnet is addressed. As Shakespeare explains, men, like plants, stay in a perfect state for only a brief period. In the couplet Shakespeare says that he will wage war on time and, besides urging him to marry (and thus "immortalize" himself through having children), he will make the young man live on through his verse.
[edit] Interpretations
[edit] References
- Alden, Raymond (1916). The Sonnets of Shakespeare, with Variorum Reading and Commentary. Houghton-Mifflin, Boston.
- Baldwin, T. W. (1950). On the Literary Genetics of Shakspeare's Sonnets. University of Illinois Press, Urbana.
- Booth, Stephen (1977). Shakespeare's Sonnets. Yale University Press, New Haven.
- Dowden, Edward (1881). Shakespeare's Sonnets. London.
- Hubler, Edwin (1952). The Sense of Shakespeare's Sonnets. Princeton University Press, Princeton.
- Schoenfeldt, Michael (2007). "The Sonnets." The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s Poetry. Ed. Patrick Cheney, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
- Tyler, Thomas (1989). Shakespeare’s Sonnets. London D. Nutt.
- Vendler, Helen (1997). The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
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