"The sonnet's first-person subject demands that mourning-even if it lasts only for one minute or one day-coincides with, rather than succeed, the death knell that will "Give warning to the world that I am fled." The sonnet seems to be firmly against mourning after death, but really it is for mourning the dead but only in a timely manner. The second line gives the brief time between life and the sound of the bell to mourn and it seems to contradict the first line. The line ends in dead, finality, giving the false sense that the sentence is over and yet it continues through to the second line. In the line there is a limit of time being set aside for mourning, only in life, but after life has ended the mourning must stop. Guyer's interpretation focuses heavily on time and the importance of that time used for mourning. Than you shall hear the surly sullen bellįrom this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:Īccording to Guyer, the first line says that once the speaker of the sonnets is dead there should be no mourning, but it is phrased in such a way that says the mourning is happening now, at a point in life and living. Essentially the poet in Sonnet 71 develops the idea that he is one of the causes as to why the youth "is suspect of the wise world." Analysis Quatrain 1 He pleads for him to not allow love to outlast the poet's life and to not bestow more values on the poet and his work than is warranted. Krieger explains the poet's pleas to the beloved friend to cooperate with time and the world in two ways. It is more specifically a part of four sonnets (71-74), which are "humble bids for affection, cast in tones of deepest gloom." Sonnets 71 and 72 are linked: a double sonnet.
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Sonnet 71 is one of the first 126 sonnets which address the putative young man. The first line exemplifies a regular iambic pentameter: × / × / × / × / × / No longer mourn for me when I am dead (71.1) / = ictus, a metrically strong syllabic position. It follows the typical rhyme scheme of the form, abab cdcd efef gg and is composed in iambic pentameter, a type of poetic metre based on five pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions. The English sonnet has three quatrains, followed by a final rhyming couplet. Sonnet 71 is an English or Shakespearean sonnet. Helen Vendler writes that "There are also, I believe, sonnets of hapless love-intended as such by the author, expressed as such by the speaker." Structure Stephen Booth calls this sonnet "a cosmic caricature of a revenging lover." While many critics agree with Peguiney and Booth, and have said that this sonnet is a veiled attempt on the part of the speaker to actually invoke the youth to mourn him, some critics believe differently. Joseph Pequigney writes that the sonnet is a "persuasive appeal to be recalled, loved and lamented…a covert counterthesis". The speaker then tells his beloved youth that if even reading this sonnet will cause him to suffer, he should forget the hand that wrote the poem. The speaker tells the youth not to mourn for him when he is dead, and that the youth should only think about him for as long as it takes to tell the world of his death.
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In this sonnet, the speaker is now concentrating on his own death and how the youth is to mourn him after he is deceased. In the final couplet, the poet urges the youth not to grieve for him "Lest the wise world should look into your moan / And mock you with me after I am gone." Again the poet is more concerned about the young man's reputation than he is about his own.Shakespeare's sonnet cycle has overarching themes of great love and the passage of time. Because the young man does not appear to be as infatuated with the poet as the poet is with the young man, such sentiment on the poet's part is rather presumptuous, especially when he then adds, "But let your love even with my life decay." Given the youth's slighting the poet earlier in the sonnets, at this point it would not be unreasonable to ask what "love" the poet thinks the youth still has for him. Never wanting to cause the youth pain, the poet is afraid that, if the young man grieves for him, his woeful thoughts will replace any loving affection he may still have for the poet. The poet asks the young man not to grieve for him when he is dead, or even remember his name.
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Note that the poet characterizes the world as "vile," a strong condemnation of the age in which artificial beauty is more cherished than the young man's natural beauty. From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell." The elegiac mood expresses a sense of loss as much for the poet's departed youth as for the actual prospect of death. Here he anticipates his own death: "No longer mourn for me when I am dead /. In this and the next three sonnets, the poet's mood becomes increasingly morbid.
![sonnet 71 sonnet 71](https://www.poemhunter.com/i/poem_images/311/love-sonnet-71-why-should-roses-be-spiked-with-prickly-thorns.jpg)
Sonnet 71 full#
Full Glossary for Shakespeare's Sonnets.